by Nicholas Whittaker

‘Move Your Face’ directed by Joey Frangieh, Assistant Direction by Amie Lytle. Set Design: Maggie Kiernan. Stage Manager: Audrey Seraphin. Lighting Design: Emily Bearce. Music: Nate Shaffer. Presented by the Boston Theater Company at the Boston Playwright’s Theater, 949 Commonwealth Ave, Boston, MA 02215.

Move Your Face is an exercise in caricature. It has to be; the play’s motivating conceit demands it. Move Your Face is a “wordless play”. After being fully scripted, each line was removed from the performance. In addition (an apparent paradox with the play’s name), each actor spends the entirety of the play (with one notable exception) wearing a brightly-colored mask. With two of the most important tools in an actor’s toolbox – facial expression or vocal inflection – stripped away, Move Your Face’s cast and creative team has to rely on movement, action, and visual spectacle to make its point. Unfortunately, the end result is a story mostly stripped of nuance and emotional specificity, relying on overly-broad strokes to make its point.

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