Last weekend (November 4-7, 2010) Stephen Faria’s new play “Boxed In” opened to responsive audiences at the Firehouse Center for the Arts in Newburyport. As the lights came up it was clear that audience members had been moved. As the weekend progressed it also became clear that audience members were voicing their growing support of this play, a play that had been a risky undertaking for the local theater. Attendance figures have been growing steadily thanks to the personal recommendations that have been circulating among patrons’ family members and friends. This is a play that has meaning for almost every age group: for parents, for children, for grand-children.
The play’s leading character is Peter, an eighty-something year old who has cloistered himself in his home, remote in his life, in order to sort through all the images that remain of his existence, images that create the picture of who he has become when viewed through the lens of his many and varied memories. Sorting into piles things that are to be thrown away, things that are to be shredded and finally photos and mementos that find their way into the “keep” box, we, as audience members, are forced to reshape our opinion as to the motive behind the desperate editing. Is it purely to control how others will see him? Does this activity create focus and purpose to his life -- so much so that it crowds out all possibility of intimacy, and thus diminishes the possibility of hurt and pain due to further loss? If he doesn’t let anyone else in then he will not lose anyone again the way he has lost everyone else he has ever cared about. As a witness to his beloved brother’s Joe’s descent into the darkness of dementia, it eventually becomes clear that Peter is fierce in his desire to capture the very best of his life so that if he too succumbs to the shadows, a gift of a memory may be bestowed upon him at such time that he needs it.
Brian Sergent, playing the lead of Peter Sousa, imparts fine measures of humor and drama into his portrayal of the gruff and reclusive man who is desperately trying to edit the facts of his life. Born in Wellington, New Zealand, Sergent has been a favorite and easily-recognizable player in New Zealand television series and is well-known in theater; his voice is also recognized for his voice-overs and radio presentations. In addition to being an award winning playwright himself, Sergent has long been hailed as one of New Zealand’s greatest comedic actors but there are other dimensions to the actor, as one can clearly see in this performance. He can go from crusty to vulnerable in a believable arc and while the role of Peter could easily succumb to darkness, Sergent always manages to escape moroseness.
Performances by local actors lend credibility to the supporting characters: Rebecca (Missy Chabot) an intensely private woman who has come into Peter’s life for the sole purpose of helping him to box up his belongings; David (Andrew White) is Peter’s nephew who only wants to hear some of his Uncle’s stories before they are lost forever so that he may create his own sense of identity; Jenna (Aisha Chodat), Rebecca’s rebellious daughter, is the only one who seems able to speak openly about their situations, a trait that has left her labeled as “difficult” and has recently gotten her suspended from school; Joe (Terry Blanchard) Peter’s older brother who waxes and wanes into his own reality until the fear of it leaves him calling for the nurse (Gloria Pappart) who cares for him.
The staging of Boxed In is imaginative and simple. Director Stephen Haley draws upon his background in psychology as he brilliantly depicts what it must be like as one is in the throes of a dementia that leaves the sufferer with jumbled thoughts, memories, and emotions. Actor Sergent takes this direction and perfectly executes the descent from confusion to fear and then to the primal need to quiet the cacophony of imagined voices. Throughout the play Joe, Peter’s adored older brother, occupies almost all facets of our lead character’s consciousness. Joe’s presence always resides just beneath the surface of Peter’s every move, and the fact that he is seldom acknowledged imbues this ghost with an even stronger existence. Onstage, before we have been introduced to Joe, just behind the scrim and in the shadows, we see the eerie outline of an old man slumped in a wheel chair. Like a whisper that gets our attention in a crowded room, the shadowy figure focuses our attention and puts Peter’s words in context. Peter is fearful of getting lost to the turmoil of dementia in the same way as his brother. Hence his relentless, fervid attempt to parse his belongs, to edit his life to the very best moments that he can hold unto to the very end.
James Atkins deserves a special note of credit for the highly effective technical support he offered in the way of creative lighting techniques. With the focus of a few sensitively placed lights the storyline came to life for the audience in impressive fashion, including the more metaphysical aspects.
There are so many little nuggets packed into the less-than 90-minutes it takes for this story to unfold on the stage, and they come wrapped in smart writing that captures us from the very first utterance, “Who are you?” Plum moments include the poignancy of a gift of a memory to a cherished older brother suffering from dementia, the reminder that strength and solace can come from the shared bonds of our humanity and the unlikely places we may stumble upon these mutual ties. In “Boxed In” Faria gives us reason to contemplate questions such as: What are the meaning and value of our memories? What role do they play for us as we wind down our days and enter the final stage of our life? How can we discover the grace in a life by embracing the essence of “thirty seconds”, Faria’s own take on living in the moment (“It comes, it goes, it starts, it ends ….poof…magic…tragic… Did things go as planned? No. Whatever goes as planned? “).
Playwright Steve Faria, says: “Never try to isolate yourself from the world around you. The things you can control; what you do propels you forward. What you can’t control, the unknowns in life are the magic. Together they can help you to discover your humanity.” There is magic and more in this play and if you afford yourself an opportunity to discover it you may also discover the ways in which we continue to draw each other out of our sheltered isolation and into the shared experience of being human. “…magic, tragic, poof. Come on, let’s go.”
