There is a lot to celebrate in Twilight Theater Company’s complex production of Song of Extinction. Playwright E. M. Lewis’ work is a timely reminder of the fragility of both our environmental and psychological ecosystems, and co-directors Michael Griggs and Kathleen Worley have brought in a fine cast to tell the story in a way that captivates and moves the audience.
The story revolves around four principal characters, each one in some way dealing with loss, evolutionary biology, and extinction (sounds a LOT drier than it is!). There’s Lily Forrestal, once a field researcher who is entering the last stages of a deadly cancer. There’s Lily’s biologist husband Ellery, hiding from his wife’s impending death by obsessing about saving the last member of a rare, endangered species of Bolivian beetle. In the meantime, young Max Forrestal (a musical prodigy, but no budding scientist) will fail biology if he doesn’t complete a 20-page paper on extinction. Dealing with the literal loss of one parent and the figurative loss of another, Max is completely adrift, and nobody seems to notice except his biology teacher, Khim Phan. Phan’s loss, while initially less obvious, is the most profound – he immigrated to the United States from Cambodia decades earlier, after losing his entire family in the brutal killing fields of the Khmer Rouge – like the Bolivian beetle, he is essentially the last of his species. The objectively “real” events of the play are interspersed with a few dreams, hallucinations, and reveries, but the writing, staging, and acting ensure that the audience is generally clear about what is going on.
Shelley Aisner’s dying “Lily” is heartbreakingly stoic as she adjusts to the finality of her diagnosis (and the awkwardness of her doctor, a newbie for whom Lily is his first dying patient). She is sometimes wry and sarcastic, sometimes gentle, and clearly frantic when Max runs away – but always believable as a fiercely strong woman trying to cope with her own fate while shielding her son and husband as much as possible. As Max, high school student Ben Delgado delivers a solid performance, moving through anger, alienation, despair, and ultimately the rebirth of his relationship with his father. His bio says that one of his favorite past roles was playing the earthworm in James and the Giant Peach, but I think his performance as Max Forrestal will assume a prominent place on this list.
Thomas Magee’s “Ellery” is almost painful to watch in his first scenes. With no context for his extreme detachment from his son and home we can only view him with puzzled anger – what father would be so indifferent that he could calmly send his son off to school with a breakfast of sauerkraut? The intensity of his passionate defense of a rare Bolivian beetle just makes it worse until we are shown a glimpse of his pain at losing Lily, and when he finally brings the same intensity to repairing his relationship with Max all is forgiven. Arun Kumar is simply riveting as Khim Phan – in some ways, he is every stern high school teacher with a heart of gold, but we are able to watch him develop this persona as he thaws from the isolation of his tragic past, fighting through both his own and Max’s loneliness and alienation in response to his young student’s obvious need.
Derek Lane’s set design is simple and effective – the hanging tubes give a slightly surreal effect that contrasts with the harsh reality of the hospital bed and curtains, and the translucent panels by the noodle shop/bus station create a gently commercial effect. Robin Pair’s lighting accurately guides the audience from one scene to another on a stage that fills many roles, almost always keeping our focus on the relevant action.
All of that said, the staging was occasionally uneven. There is a moment in the beginning when Max and Ellery are first revealing their central conflict, but for some reason the decision was made to have Phan standing stage right watching the action. Unable to watch both sides of the stage at once, I was unsure of where my attention was supposed to go – I eventually settled on the father/son pair, but wonder if I was supposed to have gleaned something from Phan’s presence. The sound effects were spectacular in the Bolivian rain forest, but it would have been helpful if sound (or props) had told me that Max was in a bus station before the dialogue revealed this fact. The butterflies slowly floating down over Lily’s bed were graceful and evocative, but the cutout silhouettes of family in Khim’s reveries were cartoonish at best.
On balance, the strong performances and story far outweigh the few negatives. Song of Extinction is one of those plays that will stay with you long after you leave the theater, and the show is definitely worth seeing.
Song of Extinction is playing at Twilight’s Performing Arts Theater, 7515 N. Brandon Avenue, Portland through July 31st, with performances at 8 pm on Friday and Saturday and 3 pm on Sunday. There is an additional performance on Thursday, July 28th at 8 pm.
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