by James Wilkerson
‘Wild Horses’ – Written by Allison Gregory. Directed by Courtney Sale. Costume Design by Lee Viliesis. Presented by Merrimack Repertory Theatre through October 3.
Watching Merrimack Repertory Theatre’s Wild Horses, I couldn’t stop turning the physical room into a metaphor for the performance. Good lord did I try to, but when it’s staring you so nakedly in the face, see how well you manage to look elsewhere. The Rep has chosen to venture out from its home theater for Alison Gregory’s one-woman play, utilizing different locations around Lowell for performances, (an at least partly COVID-related decision as much as an artistic one, I’m sure). I caught the show at the Whistler House Museum of Art where an auditorium was set up in one of the galleries. There we sat, surrounded on all sides by landscapes and still lifes. Large gilded frames encompassed each painting with at least a foot of wall space on either side. The placement serves a purpose; it ensures that viewers can’t make the error of thinking that any of these images are formally connected to each other. And there you have it. Greggory’s play is a lot like that. Much happens to the protagonist in this tale of adolescence long past but there’s a lack of connective tissue you can’t help but feel. Certainly, the play is convinced that it’s saying something, but try to pin down just what that something is and I think you’re going to stumble.
It doesn’t help that the play keeps trying to hit that endorphin-releasing nostalgia button in the center of your brain. Gregory’s script has a character (known only as ‘Woman,’ played by Leenya Rideout), remembering a string of formative scenes from the summer she was thirteen. Our lead has arrived at a local open mic, guitar in hand and ready to play some of the classic hits from that time when she stumbles, (accidentally and rather clumsily), into telling her story. I’m not so cynical that I can’t enjoy look back into childhood. But crucially, Gregory never seems interested in letting the stories that come out build towards anything revealing who this woman is today. Peppered throughout the play are bits and pieces of Top 40 hits from the time period, but what’s the significance of those songs beyond being the wallpaper of her childhood? In fact, what do we know of this guitar-playing woman in the present? We know she has kids and maybe a spouse but not how she feels about either. So why are we being invited to look back? There’s not much of an answer beyond, “Hey, weren’t we all young once? How about that?” Well, yes, we all used to be younger at one point. And now we’re older. What of it?
Several plot threads here, if developed and given greater specificity, could have each been their own full-evening show. Discovering a parent’s infidelity. A sister’s hidden sadness. Crushing on your best friend’s brother. Breaking the law with a group of friends. The haunting specter of a stern parent’s discipline. Over the course of the evening, all of this mixes together for our lead character, giving way to a narrative overload. And yet, while we may never have gotten this exact cocktail before, (and there’s perhaps a reason you don’t throw every spice in the cabinet into the
mix), all of the ingredients feel borrowed from other material where they were given the space to develop and surprise us. That doesn’t happen here. A play like this wants to feel familiar and it does, though in a way that strikes me as rather empty. Gregory tries to cram in so much that we can’t respond to the developments in a meaningful way, leading to a frustrating viewing experience. You keep wanting to shout out, “But what’s happening? Where are we going?” It’s possible that Gregory was aiming for a free-flowing narrative, something where large events overlap, more reflective of real life. But there’s a glass ceiling to the approach that’s detectable in the audience in real-time. Each time we hit one of these familiar narrative beats, the room fills with the short chuckle of recognition, but you can sense that it goes no further. We’re not invited
to do anything with that moment of recognition.
As the woman at the center of this story, Leenya Rideout turns in a performance that lets you see the sweat. It’s impressive but on a level more technical than emotional. It’s hard for me to truly judge what she’s doing because the script never gives her a chance settle in to the character and breathe. I suspect that if it did, she’d do quite well, (a moment near the play’s end suggests that Rideout could easily deliver a kick-ass performance of the titular song), but as it is, it feels like Rideout’s been thrown on a treadmill set much too high. She’s always trying to keep up with everything packed into the text and through no fault of her own gets spread too thin. Several
scenes have her playing five different characters at once. Rideout throws herself into the challenge like a champ, but it’s a losing battle. With so many plates to set spinning, there’s no time to create characters beyond simple easily recognizable and repeatable postures and gestures.
It didn’t help matters that a few weeks before seeing Wild Horses, I had finished rereading Mary Karr’s memoir classic, The Liar’s Club . I realize that it’s unfair to compare two works from completely different mediums that invoke different types of experiences and judging them as if they were the same. And it’s not my job to be telling Gregory how to write. She wrote a play, not a novel. But having recently spent time with Karr looking back on her girlhood only highlights where Gregory falls flat. Karr manages to build meaning out of her childhood by recognizing cycles of behavior in her family. At the end of Wild Horses, the narrator unironically states that everything changed after the summer in question. But what changed? What happened? Perhaps Gregory has an answer but all she gives us are a few lines from that titular song. “Wild
horses/couldn’t drag me away/Wild horses/we’ll ride them someday.” There’s a whole song after that verse. I’m wondering if the narrator knows that.
Potential patrons should note that proof of COVID vaccination or a negative test will be required in order to see the show. Masks will also be required during the performance. For tickets and more information, visit their website: www.mrt.org
