'One Flea Spare' stings with dark drama

Author: Ellen Grafton

In a Zoo season already brimming with sinister shows, "One Flea Spare" brought its own particular brand of dark drama to the Hepburn Zoo May 27-29. Written by Naomi Wallace and directed by Evan Dumouchel '06.5, it tells the story of four people trapped in a house during the 1665 plague in England. The action that follows explores issues of class, power and the supernatural.

The show opens with a monologue by Morse (Julia Proctor '06.5), a 12-year-old girl. Her monologue seems to be addressing an unseen interrogator, to whom she relates the horrors of the plague. The scene then transitions to Darcy (Meghan Nesmith '06) and William Snelgrave (Michael Ratpojanakul '06) who have been confined to their house while the plague wreaks havoc on London. Bunce, (MacLeod Andrews '07.5) a sailor seeking refuge from the plague, breaks into the Snelgraves' house. Morse also sneaks in, claiming to be the daughter of the aristocratic Braithwaites. The Snelgraves are horrified to find two possibly contaminated strangers in their house, but before they can throw them out, Kabe (John Rayburn '06.5), the street guard, discovers the invasion and sentences the whole house to 28 more days of quarantine.

Confined to two rooms of the house, the secrets of the four inmates come to light. Mrs. Snelgrave was burned badly in a fire soon after her wedding, and her husband refuses to touch her scarred skin. Bunce nurses a never-healing wound from a mining accident of his youth and relays to the Snelgraves bits of his amoral and erotic life at sea. Morse may or may not be who she claims.

In such close contact, the divisions between the classes dissolve. Bunce rebels against his role as servant, Darcy sleeps with Bunce and Kabe becomes a raving prophet of the apocalypse. By the end of the show Darcy and William Snellgrave are dead, Bunce escapes and Morse witnesses the revival of the city.

The performances by Nesmith and Proctor were well wrought. Once again corseted, Nesmith effectively played Darcy's sexual and spiritual repression with a light touch. She exposed the tension beneath Darcy's ladylike demeanor through a subtle catch in her voice or the habitual twisting of her handkerchief. By imbuing Darcy with timidity in the first act, Nesmith gave herself room to evolve into the assertive Darcy of the second act. Her decisiveness in taking Bunce as a lover and insisting on suicide played as personal release rather than moral weakness. As Morse, Proctor mastered what is arguably the most difficult role in the show. Her physicality and vocals fluctuated well with the changes in her character. Proctor swung easily from unearthly creepiness to endearing playfulness. Believability in age was a stretch for both actresses: Darcy is supposed to be 53 and Morse 12. Comments of Darcy as an "old woman" frequently clashed with Nesmith's young face and voice.

Ratpojanakul also occasionally played Snelgrave too young. His aristocratic, mincing movements were a nice manifestation of Snelgrave's obsession with class division but his dramatic vocal choices in the first act were too strong to allow much growth in the second act. The strength of his rages stayed at the same level of self-righteous anger throughout the play, when they should have moved from class snobbery to utter desperation.

As Bunce, Andrews delivered a fascinating and driven performance. Andrews' understated choices created a Bunce that is capable of reading the desires of those around him and benefiting accordingly. Rayburn also delivered a consistently entertaining performance as the violent, shifty Kabe.

The set, designed by Aaron Gensler '08, brought the audience close with a protruding platform stage down the length of the Zoo. The raised wooden platform of the floor added an authentic sound detail to the show as the floor creaked and groaned with the actors' footsteps. The combination of real and computerized sound in the show- buckets slamming, skirts rustling, canes rapping, the overwhelming buzz of flies brought the audience into the claustrophobic ambiance of the play's plague-ridden world. Brooke Smith's '07 lighting design, though functional, lacked the imaginative element needed for Wallace's script. Especially during Morse's monologues, the lighting needed to change more drastically to support the unnatural, poetic bent of the material.

Wallace's dark poeticism is not easy material to pull off, but the cast of Dumouchel's production performed it well. Although "One Flea Spare" was not flawless, the strong performances and attention to detail in set and sound made it an accomplished and entertaining night of theater.