MANOA VALLEY THEATRE
Dr. Halbrech (Melanie Garcia), center, comes between the Woman (Alison Gal) and John Astor (Richard MacPherson), who can't believe the Woman is a Titanic survivor.
Poor script dooms
Titanic play to sharing
sunken ship’s fate
Gripping theater draws the viewer into the action and into making an emotional investment in the fate of the characters. Manoa Valley Theatre's production of "Scotland Road," a convoluted mystery inspired by the sinking of the luxury liner Titanic in 1912, falls far short of "gripping," but because the story is told without an intermission, there is no opportunity to jump ship along the way.
The premise and trajectory of playwright Jeffrey Hatcher's tale follows the well-trod path charted by "The Twilight Zone" and "The Outer Limits" in the early 1960s. Wealthy John Astor has obtained temporary custody of a young woman who was found floating on an iceberg in the North Atlantic dressed in Edwardian attire. She has spoken only one word since being rescued -- "Titanic" -- but the time is "now," and that means the ill-fated liner was lost more than 80 years ago.
"Scotland Road" continues at 7:30 p.m. Wednesdays and Thursdays, 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, and 4 p.m. Sundays through Feb. 1 at Manoa Valley Theatre. Tickets are $25 general admission, $20 seniors and military, $15 age 25 and younger. Call 988-6131.
Is she insane? A publicity-seeker attempting to perpetrate some kind of bizarre hoax? A ghost? A time-traveler? Or is Astor imagining the whole thing in a twist on the plot device that was used to bring Bobby Ewing back to life on "Dallas"?
But back to our story. Astor is determined to prove that the woman is not a survivor of the sinking and is keeping her under 24-hour surveillance in a private sanitarium with a doctor and two mute aides/guards in attendance. Laboratory analysis has revealed that the woman's clothes are authentic -- that is, that the fabrics, dyes, buttons and other materials are those of the early 20th century and not of contemporary manufacture -- even if they don't appear to be almost 100 years old.
If the age and condition of the woman's clothing appear to rule out the possibility that she is a crank or a publicity-seeker, that leaves the latter three possibilities in play. Gigantic leaps of faith must be made regarding motivation and character development in seeing the story through.
Start with John Astor. Those familiar with the story of the Titanic know that John Jacob Astor was one of the wealthiest and most prominent victims of the disaster. Knowing that only women and children would be allowed in the lifeboats, he made sure that his pregnant young wife got into her assigned boat and then calmly awaited the end dressed in full formal attire.
Another wealthy passenger was later accused of bribing his way to safety, and several survivors said they knew of a third man who got into a lifeboat dressed as a woman, but no taint of scandal ever attached itself to the behavior of Astor and the loyal valet who shared his fate.
Given those facts, why is Astor's great-grandson so obsessed with proving that a mute woman in her mid-20s can't be a survivor of the disaster? If this were a story about someone whose great-grandfather was accused of cowardice aboard the Titanic, there would be a logical reason for that person to hope that a mysterious castaway might somehow have information that could clear his ancestor's name, but this isn't that story, and gripping theater it is not.
The Woman never becomes more than a plot device. A third character, Dr. Halbrech, serves in large part to provide the audience with information that Astor could already be privy to. The fourth, a (fictional) Titanic survivor, is extraneous to the outcome but makes it possible to add more history to the story while also prolonging it.
The most memorable bits in the 90-minute show consist of a joke about the content of public radio and a mild double-entendre about an actress who died in the tragedy.
A thriller this is not. The probable solution to the mystery can be foreseen well in advance, even though precise details are less obvious. The revelations concerning the two secondary characters are irrelevant. One revelation has no bearing on the story. The other can be seen coming so far ahead that the only question is the gender of the performer playing the role. When the "truth" is finally revealed, it requires another tremendous suspension of belief that has nothing to do with the Woman or the outcome of the story.
Richard MacPherson (Astor) gives a spirited performance as the quirky and dictatorial protagonist but fights a losing battle with the script. Astor's curiosity about how he would have behaved in his great-grandfather's place isn't enough to explain the intensity of his determination to expose the Woman (Alison Gal) as a fraud or his stake in the answer. There is then no reason for the audience to make an emotional investment in the success or failure of Astor's quest, let alone the fate of the other characters.
Gal makes her debut on the local stage with a satisfactory performance in an essentially two-dimensional role. Melanie Garcia (Dr. Halbrech) and Ruth Pauline Brown (Frances Kittle) complete the cast.
All things considered, the work of technical crew members Karen Archibald (set design), Janine Myers (lighting) and Jason Taglianetti (sound) in creating a sense of being adrift in the frigid North Atlantic and encountering an iceberg bearing a streak of red at the waterline is the most impressive element in this knockoff of "The Outer Limits" and "The Twilight Zone."
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