Theater Is Dead

Bluesky

For those who are not immediately terrified, the first experience of serious acting, of being emotionally open and vulnerable around strangers, can be intoxicating. Not everywhere is the world has a theatre kid culture like that in the US, but it’s easy enough to understand; and given the shortage of equivalent experiences for adults (who don’t have the same power to compel people to watch them), it’s easy to understand how some people end up addicted and desperately chasing after professional roles which they’ll do pretty much anything to get.

This is not another straightforward tale of actors’ rivalry (for that, this year has offered up Et Tu), but it’s important to have that passion and competition in mind to understand the impact of excitable teenage audience member Willow (Decker Sadowski) attending a single acting taster session and immediately being picked as the lead in a new production. Whilst not wholly talentless, she has a long way to go to refine her raw abilities, and even those troupe members not directly passed over for her know that they will have to work harder as a result of her casting. They’re nice people and they mostly reserve their complaints for director Matthew (Shane West), but his daughter, Taylor (Madison Lawlor), takes it out on Willow directly, making for an ugly atmosphere in rehearsals.

“This role demands a certain level of innocence,” Matthew asserts in his defence, and Willow certainly has that, though not altogether in a traditional way. She’s not a virgin, and is confident about her body, actually working with a college friend on his project to design a reuseable menstrual cup. She’s grown up with a single mother after the death of her father, so she understands a bit about life’s vicissitudes. But Willow has been sheltered to a degree of which she is quite unaware, and she has no experience of dangerous people. When Matthew takes her to that raw, exposed place where many actors go to start a scene, and then leaves her there, knowing that she has no idea how to get back again, it feels cruel. One might wonder if he has an ulterior motive. Were it the usual one, Willow might actually be better off.

There’s a whole additional layer of plot underneath the obvious stuff here, and it certainly suffices to explain why the film was at Fantastic Fest. To say much about it would be to spoil some of the most entertaining parts of the film – though honestly, it’s not that difficult to figure out. The first half is packed with clues and double entendres. The second becomes more about action. There’s an interesting shift in Taylor, the most interesting character throughout, but otherwise the focus moves away from exploring the character dynamics and onto something more playful. The complicated business of adult power games is replaced with something which less experience is required to understand, so despite the stakes being raised, one no longer really feels that the younger characters are at a disadvantage.

Some aspects of the film are more successful that others. It would be nice to see more made of the Pacific Northwest island setting and its particular cultural nuances. A subplot involving a former troupe member who has become a star feels vestigial and would be batter removed altogether. Willow’s theatre friend Jaden, however, could have done with more room to breathe, with Dylan Adler delivering one of the better performances. Still, it’s a spirited romp with plenty to appeal to younger viewers – especially if they’re theatre kids themselves.

Source