The interconnected lives of three women from very different racial, social and cultural backgrounds living in the comfort-zoned suburbs of Connecticut is the emotional centerpiece of Saviana Stanescu's powerful, poetic full-length play "Bee Trapped Inside the Window," a stirring, ovation-worthy work, which kicks off HartBeat Ensemble's eagerly anticipated 2022 regional theater season - its first since the pandemic. And, though it's been a long time coming, it's well worth the wait.
A play heavily reliant on confident, mind-building storytelling techniques and metaphors, the production benefits from Stanescu's trio of first-person characterizations and story arcs that forge ahead with apt verbatim, conversation, thoughts, ideas and viewpoints that are seamlessly woven into the framework of her important story and its full-titled sense of entrapment.
Sasha is an attractive, materialistic, opinionated, white, Russian-American corporate executive who drinks too much, is obsessed with physical appearance and doesn't exactly look forward to growing old gracefully with age. Early on, we also learn that during a business trip to Africa from several years ago, she had wild, passionate sex with a black man who, following their fling, faded completely into oblivion and was never heard from again.
Mia, Sasha's outspoken, black, teenaged daughter, is the product of their intimate coupling, a smart, inquisitive young woman who is often ridiculed for her light-skinned biracial identity, but, nonetheless, wants answers about her biological father while being forced to endure the prejudice and discrimination of the times and her mother's refusal to fully understand her issues, needs and fight for freedom of expression.
The trio is completed by May, an Asian-American, in-house domestic worker from next door who works tirelessly for a wealthy suburban family with children and is completely content with her boring, routine existence, much the surprise of both Sasha and Mia whose observe her daily cleaning indoor and outdoor rituals with a confused contentment and acceptance they find baffling. Well, at first anyway. There is much more to May's story than both women are aware of.
Driven.
Emotional.
Grounded.
Significant.
Vigorous.
"Bee Trapped Inside the Window" is played and written with full-throttle fury and smarts, offset by heightened sensitivity, varying degrees as blatant candidness and actively addressed questions and answers specific to its development and scene-by-scene progression.
Written as interior-framed monologues that glide into important truths and conversations, the play, as theater, pulls you in and never once loses its grip. As playwright, Stanescu's sustained arc of consequence, hope and longing is fueled by page-by-pace reactive that adds shading, diversity and cohesiveness to her telling, all very well worth watching. There are pauses. There are beats. There are breaks. There are reactions. There are surprises. There are conflicts. There are shocks. There are conclusions.
It's all carefully positioned, timed and edited with just the right amount of time, space, atmosphere and conversation necessary to sustain interest and move the play forward toward its surprise, emotional conclusion.
At HartBeat, "Bee Trapped Inside the Window" is being staged by Vernice P. Miller. As director, she taps into Stanescu's important character study with activist-instilled energy, standpoint, strongness and duty-bound precision. Her treatment of the material is potent and authoritative, always mirroring the playwright's fluidity, her fiery, involved shifts of tone and expression and the private torment of the characters, their growth, their isolation, their differences and their willingness to bare their souls and break free of the net that taunts and entraps their lives. The latter is smartly distinguished by Norm Johnson Jr's confined, atmospheric set design which Miller utilizes splendidly throughout the play. Well-time sound effects that include bees buzzing about the stage add dimension to Stanescu's already angst-ridden, determined essay.
Scene by scene, line by line, movement by movement - everything is crafted and tossed into orbit by Miller with pulse, imagination and purpose. A performer herself, she gets inside the mind of her three characters, fills them with the right ticks, the right voice and quirks, thrusts them center stage and lets them speak and fly on their own as one, as two or as a trio confidently in sync with the mindset and persona instilled in Stanescu's weighty, intelligently-written play script. There is also a guided, natural fluidity to Miller's directorial prowess that gives the production a fascination and enthrallment reminiscent of the dramatic works akin to Yale Rep, Circle in the Square, the Public Theater in the East Village and London's intimate Donmar Warehouse.
"Bee Trapped Inside the Window" stars Erin Lockett as Mia, Jennifer Dorr White as Sasha and Mami Kimura as May. Casting, of course, is everything and here, the trio of performers chosen to bring Stanescu's play to life, is strong and well chosen.
As Mia, Erin Lockett is an articulate, charismatic performer who shows her command of the material in a beautiful-defining performance of poise, frenzy, determination, racial abuse and a climactic declaration of independence. In the role of Sasha, Mia's mother, Jennifer Dorr White delivers an equally assured characterization outlined with detail, thrust, excitement, control and a marvelous sense of edged, picture-framed intimacy. Mami Kimura, cast in the part of May, sparks the piece with a captivating, intuitive turn fraught with real emotion, real concern, real humility and real unbrokeness. It's a straightforward, delicate performance, deep, rich and resonant that rings so very true in today's world, a fact that is fully enriched and developed by both actress and playwright as "Bee Trapped Inside the Window" concludes with some very painful, surprising, defining moments.
A clever, thought-provoking drama of enormous depth and persuasion, "Bee Trapped Inside the Window" invites the theatergoer into an intimate, troubled world populated by three very different women, all of whom shake things up with riveting stories and dialogue that allows one to step back, think, absorb, question and make sense of the ongoing drama at hand. Directed with navigating savvy and modulating precision by Vernice P. Miller, this 90-minute character study edges itself completely into our consciousness, backed by three raw, vivid performances and a fascinating play script by Saviana Stanescu that is written in bold, beautifully orchestrated increments. It is not only one of the highlights of the 2022 regional theater season, but one that will linger in memory long after it is over and the actors takes their bows.
"Bee Trapped Inside the Window" is being staged by HartBeat Ensemble (The Carriahe House Theater, 360 Farmington, CT), now through May 7, 2022.
For tickets or more information, call (860) 548-9144.
website: hartbeatensemble.org
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