Brilliant Traces at 35below

At times during Brilliant Traces, the theatergoers in the front row have to pull back their feet to get out of the way of the actors. The two-person play takes place in a remote cabin in Alaska, and in the intimate 35below space, the audience is cooped up with these two strangers who are gradually tearing down each other’s defenses — and drawing in the folks watching them at the same time.

Cindy Lou Johnson’s 1989 drama begins when Rosannah (Shari Azar) shows up at the home of Henry (Thomas Trauger) during a blizzard, which continues for the duration of the show, trapping them inside. She delivers a frantic and captivating monologue — wearing a dress that begs for an explanation — and then collapses. When she awakens some time later, the real pas de deux begins.

It’s easy to see why director Robert Dale Walker (recently seen as the lead actor in Asheville Community Theatre’s fine production of Rabbit Hole) was attracted to this play as a challenge for himself (as director) and his wife (Azar). An acting showcase, it’s got long speeches, running gags, shocking revelations, uncomfortable collisions, and just the right dosage of exploding passions.

It’s a 100-minute acting tour de force, and well worth checking out. As Rosannah, Azar plays every imaginable emotion with faultless conviction. This is a play in which we know each character’s confessions will eventually clarify their history and crack their facades, if not their sanity, and Azar builds a fully sympathetic performance that culminates in a dramatic finale.

Trauger is equally impressive, gradually meting out Henry’s history until he reaches the crux of his brokenness, which Trauger and Walker wisely decided to deliver with disturbing calm. Indeed, Walker’s choices throughout give the performers necessary breathing room and a calibrated modulation that allows the big moments to have the weight they merit.

Another great choice was bringing in musician Travis Ortwein as a full partner, as he performs on solo electric guitar throughout the show (starting as the audience takes their seats). Like a fine cinema score, Ortwein’s atmospheric phrases and murmurs help the show cohere, underlining its emotions and blending with the drama without overwhelming it. An actor himself, Ortwein has an instinct for how to support the performances with his own talents. Well done.

The only collaborator for whom I might have a lot of “notes,” as they say, would be the absent playwright, Johnson. Her play may be a boon to performers — which has made it a favorite for small theater companies in the past 30 years — but it’s spread a bit thin over 100 minutes. Knowing, as we all do, that major epiphanies are inevitable in the final third of the show, there’s not a lot of anecdotal detail in the first two thirds. The characters reveal bits and pieces about their lives, but rather than expanding on that information in engaging ways, Johnson opts for a more abstract dance of dialogue. A better playwright would offer us a lot more simmering background — for example, narrative detail from Rosannah’s long car trip; scenes from Henry’s mundane work life — that could have set the stage for the boiling point to come. We do, eventually, learn what brought Rosannah and Henry to where they are, but the journey there remains oddly ambiguous and sometimes circular.

That critique, of course, is about 31 years too late for Brilliant Traces, but it’s worth noting as perhaps the reason you haven’t heard of this play before. The Rough Play production team makes the most of Johnson’s work and provides a powerful theater experience — an accomplishment all the more impressive since the source material isn’t the best.

Brilliant Traces runs through January 26 in 35below at Asheville Community Theatre. For details and tickets, visit ashevilletheatre.org.

(Photo courtesy of Asheville Community Theatre)