There are so many powerful, challenging and fascinating things going on at once in Firehouse’s “Water by the Spoonful” that it’s hard to tease out which aspects of the production are most impressive.
Luckily, you don’t have to figure that out to enjoy this show; you can just immerse yourself in a compelling story, told exceptionally well, presented on a visually rich canvas.
Playwright Quiara Alegría Hudes has constructed a two-pronged plotline that comes together at the end of the first act with stunning impact.
College professor Yazmin (Juliana Caycedo) is helping her cousin, Elliot (Erich Appleby), assimilate into civilian life in Philadelphia after a traumatic tour of duty in Iraq. Both of their worlds are rocked when Elliot’s mother dies early on in the show.
Meanwhile, Odessa (Alana Dodds Sharp) spends most of her time acting as administrator of an online support group for recovering crack addicts. Identified solely by their usernames, the youngest member, Orangutan (Anne Michelle Forbes), and the oldest member, Chutes&Ladders (Eric “Mr. Q” Quander), gleefully undercut the ego of the group’s newest member, Fountainhead (John-Michael Jalonen).
Whenever the show seems in danger of slipping into the overwrought or depressive, the depictions of these virtual conversations crackle with delightfully dark humor.
When the two prongs of this plotline collide, connections are made and secrets revealed that defy expectations, keeping the audience in suspense wondering where the story might swerve next. It’s no wonder Hudes won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for her work here.
Director Katrinah Carol Lewis pulls off a series of extraordinary fetes, in partnership with a superb cast and an ace technical team. I’ve never seen interactions in the online world made to snap and zing with authentic emotional energy like they do here.
Lewis accomplishes this with the aid of Tennessee Dixon, who has created a truly amazing array of projections that ground the production without ever overwhelming it. From simply indicating a character’s location (San Diego, Japan, etc.) to rendering settings as varied as a flower shop to the wilds of Puerto Rico, the projections help establish a fully realized world for these characters to inhabit.
The production showcases the talents of Appleby and Sharp, in particular. Appleby has emerged as one of the most dynamic young talents in Richmond over the past couple years and his embodiment of a Marine suffering from PTSD seethes with emotion, without ever tipping into melodrama. (Among the myriad reasons to catch this show: Appleby may not hang around Richmond much longer based on his bio in the program.)
Sharp’s character goes to extremes, starting as the calm voice of reason online, then devolving as the scourge of addiction re-emerges to take its toll. But like Appleby, Sharp avoids caricature, maintaining a solid baseline of relatable humanity, even as we learn about her more despicable failings.
Forbes, Quander and Jalonen make for a fascinating triad, bouncing off each other with engaging chemistry that only grows as their characters’ relationships move out of the virtual world into real life.
As the only non-addict among the major characters, Yazmin doesn’t go to the same extremes as some others but Caycedo captures a warmth and depth that acts like an emotional center around which the others swirl.
As a professor of music, her character also introduces the concept of dissonance in jazz, which is reflected in the inspired choices of entr’acte music by sound consultant Jeremy Morris. Delivered via a superb sound design by Grace Brown Labelle, these pieces further enhance the production’s energy.
Oh, and I haven’t even mentioned that this is also a ghost story, as the memory of an Arab citizen who he encountered in Iraq vexes Elliot throughout the show, ably depicted in the flesh by Mahlon Raoufi and cast in gauzy spectral light in Dixon’s projections.
There are even more components meshing together in something of a dissonant fervor that never flags during the show’s two-and-a-half hour running time. Grab tickets to this thoroughly captivating experience to discover the rest of them before it’s too late.
“Water by the Spoonful” is playing at Firehouse Theatre, 1609 West Broad St., through Nov. 24. Tickets and information available at https://www.firehousetheatre.org/.
