211. MY DAUGHTER KEEPS OUR HAMMER
The
brilliant director Julie Taymor earned part of her reputation staging plays
about animals. For one, there was THE LION KING, for another, SPIDERMAN: TURN
OFF THE DARK. Now, her niece, Danya Taymor, a novice director in residence
at the Flea Theatre, is helming Brian Watkins’s MY DAUGHTER KEEPS OUR HAMMER, a
two-character piece in which a sheep figures prominently. This must be the season
of the sheep in Tribeca, what with the recent MARIE ANTOINETTE at the Soho Rep, in which David
Greenspan played one of these wooly creatures. Fortunately, given what happens
to it, we never actually see the sheep in Mr. Watkins's play, but we hear enough about it to see it
very clearly in our minds.
Katherine Folk-Sullvan, Layla Khoshnoudi. Photo: Hunt
MY DAUGHTER KEEPS OUR HAMMER (the title's meaning is unclear) is a borderline play,
straddling the fence between short story and drama, with the emphasis on the
former. With a play like GROUNDED, playing around the corner at the
Walkerspace, the narrative is delivered by a single player, so we can easily accept
the solo performance of a character speaking directly to us and telling us her
story in a suitably convincing way. In MY DAUGHTER, two sisters recite the narrative, yet despite their sharing the stage for around an
hour, they never talk to one another, thereby diminishing
the dramatic effect. As they speak, they carry out some simple movements
provided by Ms. Taymor, but, for the most part, they deliver directly to us.
Theirs is an odd but intriguing story ripe
with gothic elements of animal-related violence about Sarah (Katherine Folk-Sullivan) and Hannah
(Layla Khoshnoudi), who first appear with their hands covered in ashy soot. They live in rural Eaton, Colorado, on the plains, where they care for their ailing, eccentric mother; also present is Vicky, their
sole animal, an old sheep their dad bought for his wife on their 20th anniversary. Mom has an inordinate
fondness for Vicky, allowing it to ramble around the house like any ordinary pet; being un-housebroken, it does its business everywhere, forcing the stay-at-home Sarah to clean up after it. The
sisters recount their reactions to Vicky's presence, which they
find inordinately stupid, and which is an obstacle to
their relationship with their mother. There's something of a sibling rivalry between the sisters, partly to do with a mint condition '85 Ford in the garage each of them wants their mother to give them, Sarah so she can sell it and use the money for schooling that will let her move on in life, and Hannah, a waitress, so she can replace the heater-less junk heap she presently drives.
Hannah, thinking she’d be doing her mother a service, gets a customer to have his ram mate with the sheep and produce a lamb, despite the long odds of a conception. She and Sarah, however, eventually express their frustrations by mistreating Vicky, beginning with a meat tenderizer, which leads to gruesome events that, to reveal, could lead to animal societies picketing the place.
Hannah, thinking she’d be doing her mother a service, gets a customer to have his ram mate with the sheep and produce a lamb, despite the long odds of a conception. She and Sarah, however, eventually express their frustrations by mistreating Vicky, beginning with a meat tenderizer, which leads to gruesome events that, to reveal, could lead to animal societies picketing the place.
Hannah and Sarah speak in rapid, low-keyed, conversational tones, like recognizably ordinary young women, underplaying the rather bizarre things they find themselves doing in their narrative, if not before our eyes. The increasingly grotesque story, written by Mr. Watkins in a dryly candid way, is sick enough to hold our interest, and there are a number of offbeat laugh lines, but its dispassionate style keeps us at something of a distance. The piece reminds us of the elemental cruelty lying dormant in all of us, a cruelty that needs only the right circumstances to emerge, even if the object of our behavior is a helpless creature.
Katherine Folk-Sullivan, Layla Khoshnoudi. Photo: Hunter Canning.
MY DAUGHTER . . . is being performed in the Flea’s tiny downstairs space, where a shabby, translucent curtain is pulled aside to reveal the venue’s familiar upstage wall,
with its usual openings, painted black by designer Andrew Diaz; what
seem like sheets of heavy brown wrapping paper fill the open spaces. Minimal scenic units suggesting simplified fence work made of sticks and dried brush
decorate the stage, and the principal props are several logs
stacked to form a pyre (could that be a spoiler?). John Eckert
does well with the atmospheric lighting, including a bit at the play's beginning when Ms. Folk-Sullivan's profile is seen as an old-fashioned silhouette within a circle of light on the curtain.
Ms. Folk-Sullivan and Ms.Khosnoudi, members of the
Bats, the Flea’s resident company, are both believable, in keeping with the always impressive
talent we expect of this company’s young artists, but the piece, for all
its strangeness, doesn’t allow them to do more than stay in the storytelling
zone; the kind of interaction we expect between two characters in conflict is
never present. In fact, there really is not much conflict between the sisters,
who both find themselves sucked into the same behavioral vortex. Mr. Watkins definitely can write, but no matter how vivid his images and ideas, this kind of playwriting is a copout. Dramaturgically speaking, it’s like trying to pull the
wool over our eyes.
