How will you spend your Thanksgiving break?
Jonathan Reynolds' compelling and creepy "Girls in Trouble" skips through the Sixties, the Eighties and the new millennium, focusing on female archetypes from each period. Each woman is affected differently by the question of when life begins, and whether to terminate the fetus.
In the early 1960s, Hutch (Andy Gershenzon) and his pal Teddy (Brett Aresco) are driving one of Hutch's flings over state lines to an illegal abortionist. Twenty years later, a young woman takes pride in her power of speech and the ability to destroy her unborn child. Finally, two women representing pro-life and pro-choice, respectively, square off in the modern kitchen — a space pulsing with fertility — to debate the fate of the pro-choicer's fetus.
Hands-down, Eboni Booth gives the most gripping performance as Cynthia: She appears in the first narrative as the inquisitive child of the abortionist, dominates the second act as a twenty-something spoken word poet hanging her cheating boyfriend out to dry, and steers the third act as a pro-lifer willing to do anything to persuade her friend Amanda (Laurel Holland) to keep her child.
Though all the stories are compelling, the third narrative is a particularly well developed portrait of the current abortion debate. Reynolds commendably presents both figures as strong, realistic women. Their argument, performed around a kitchen island and a simmering wok, tugs the audience back and forth: Amanda's smugness is acceptable, as is her sheer panic at the thought of screwing up another child. Cynthia mixes sweetness and venom to appeal to Amanda's sense of motherhood. Neither woman ever has the definite advantage until the twisted ending.
The men are mostly ineffectual; they're portrayed as shiftless idiots who knocked up their girlfriends in nights of ill-advised, fumbling passion. Hutch, the collegiate baby-daddy in the '60s narrative, is a boy who has his future mapped out but who also possesses enough frightening mental clarity to ensure that no accidents screw up his career. His clueless best friend, Teddy, is the flipside to his worn coin: He is the bumbling virgin who would kill to have the chance to possibly impregnate a pretty girl.
Yet the women don't get off scot-free; the part they've played in each conception is always emphasized. Fully in command of their sexuality, they too make the choice to have intercourse; whether they know the full consequences of sex is, of course, up for debate.
Each narrative has a moment that is undeniably uncanny, examining the gory after-effects of the procedure and invoking the idea that women have the power to give, and take, life. Director Jim Simpson encourages these moments, which are a bit like horror film climaxes. More than one woman exhibits a malicious glint in her eye when she realizes that she can tie down her deadbeat man with the cluster of cells growing inside her.
The ensemble of the Bats (the resident acting company of The Flea Theater) is terrific, whether the individual members appear in multiple roles or only as one character. They enliven Reynolds' politically charged script, resulting in a powerhouse production that elicits laughter, gasps and even cheers.
"Girls in Trouble" plays at The Flea Theater (41 White St.) through March 21. Tickets ($20) can be purchased at theflea.org.
