Ellen Fairey(writer) and Matthew Miller’s(director) full length play, recently transferred to Hollywood’s Hudson Theatre from Chicago’s Serendipity Theatre Collective is not to be missed. Girl, 20 brings to the entertainment scene what has been lacking for so long: an up-close-and personal look at the inner psyche of the modern college student: all honesty and finally without all the hype.?
Fairey and Miller develop their?characters in a likeness to reality that is too rare in the entertainment world of youth renditions today. Rachel Sondag,?the main character Jade, is referred by her creative writing professor to a free counseling program on campus after she turns in a sexually explicit response to his “What I did last summer” assignment?that is too graphic for his tastes.
Behind the one-way mirror of the counselor’s office sit Marty (Rob Belushi), a film buff/ frat boy with a taste for Hitchcock and Slavinsky, and Sam (Madison Dirks), a grad student studying psychology with more of his own issues than his over-analytical mind can seem to cope with.
The two monitor Jade’s sessions, at first neutral to her presence – she is one of many patients they are scheduled to watch – but soon it becomes much more than an experiment. Gradually the two find themselves entwined in a fantastical drama of obsession and betrayal only Jade herself, a skilled young writer, could manifest.
With the audience constantly at the mercy of her plot, Ellen Fairey holds us in a state of wonder about what the final outcome will be. Not until Sondage’s final line does it become clear what is behind all the casual dialogue mixed with heavy implications and psychological foreshadowing.
Is Jade the passive victim, objectified by a one-way mirror? Or is she the puppet-master, formulating the every thought and move of her helpless observers?
Girl, 20, a production by Whitehorse Productions out of LA, will be playing at the Hudson Theatre through October 20th and is a must see for anyone, whether you are a theatre buff or merely have a jones for a couple cheap jokes with undertones of true wit and sarcasm – Rob Belushi?does not disappoint on this front.?
Tickets are available online at plays411.com or can be purchased via phone at:
(323) 960-7726
The Hudson Theatre is located at:
6539 Santa Monica Blvd.
Hollywood, CA 90038
For more information on the production company visit serenditpitytheatre.org