Fire & Flood at BeBe Theatre
Fire & Flood is the shared title of two smartly conceived one-act plays currently having their world premiere courtesy of The Sublime Theater & Press in Asheville. With performances ongoing at the BeBe Theatre downtown, the show is the work of prolific local playwright Travis Lowe, who understandably has destruction on his mind after the past year or so of local and national events. Which is not to say Fire & Flood is all downbeat. With an “enchantingly elegant sea maiden,” delicious falafel, a possibly sentient debris pile, and some Chappell Roan lyrics, there are plenty of moments of wit and wonder as well.
In the first play, “55 Mount Lee Drive,” directed by Dakota Mann, an unflappable cowboy named El (Jon Stockdale) leans on a section of wooden fence at the foot of the “Hollywood” sign in Los Angeles, watching what seems to be a conflagration down the hill. (“Mount Lee Drive” is the trail sightseers can hike up to the base of the iconic sign in the Hollywood Hills.) Inexplicably, a woman named Luci (Glenna Grant) has navigated her pushcart falafel business up the trail as well, evidently well acquainted with El, who buys and enjoys eating a falafel. He tells Luci he’s watching his sheep, down below, and she soon reports, “A few of your flock are on fire,” to which El responds with little more than a shrug.
If you’re not sure what’s going on here, you’re only going to get more confused and amused by the appearance of Cleodora (Olivia Stuller), a professional mermaid who was performing at a children’s party until the fires got out of hand and she fled up the mountain, still in her ash-stained mermaid costume. She too has a falafel, and the disjointed conversation continues.
El is the enigma at the center of this slice of low-key disaster, and Stockdale is mesmerizing in his laidback, authoritative manner. (“I’m never wrong,” he says, and it seems just a statement of fact, not a boast.) He’s full of stories that never seem to have an ending, and pronouncements that minimize the unfolding calamity. (Los Angeles may fall to ruin, but they’ll just “build it back better,” so why worry?) Luci is the audience’s stand-in, and Grant seems rightly bemused by it all. Stuller injects much of the show’s comedy, and even just the way she moves seems funny. Her mermaid persona also inspires some discussion of mythology, which will come into focus later.
What’s it all mean? Turns out the twist is hidden in El’s constant crocheting, a reveal that ends the play with a smile and an “Aha!” and puts the whole conflagration in a new light. It may make you want to see it all again, to look for hints you missed.
The second play is “Nightlight,” directed by Steven Samuels, and it’s basically a one-woman show — an engaging monologue broken up only by the occasional exchange with an unseen man at the other end of a walkie talkie (voiced by Stockdale). The setting is the immediate aftermath of Tropical Storm Helene, specifically at the site of a debris pile that’s been determined to contain a human body. Michel (Erin McCarson) is a rescue worker assigned to guard the unseen remains from wild animals overnight, while awaiting the removal to come: “Just me and the river and the flood pile,” as she puts it.
Michel is a woman at a crossroads in her life, determined to do “good deeds” but not sure where she’s headed — “Humans are never satisfied,” she observes. McCarson is terrific as Michel: sympathetic and vulnerable and curious and probably never going to find answers that calm her nerves. Her monologue digresses from contemplating “rules and rituals” to referencing George Orwell’s 1984, and from trying to recall Madonna’s dabbling with Kabbalah to quoting Roan’s "Hot to Go!” — and through it all, McCarson makes Michel’s musings organic and honest, with no hint of contrivance. Eventually, Michel declares, “Whatever may come, I’m going to be happy!” and we admire her determination, whether or not we’re convinced of her ability to follow through. She’s also often funny — “Even a broken clock gets its eggs in the basket twice a day!”
Like the fire in the first play, the flood in the second is heavy with meaning beyond its immediate effects, a topic that playwright Lowe dangles for our consideration without dwelling on it. There’s also a hint of a possible plot twist that suggests a more mystical ending, but Lowe drops that in and then just drops it, preferring to keep this scenario more grounded than “55 Mount Lee Drive.” The first play contemplates whether hope is realistic for humanity, while “Nightlight” asks simply whether hope is possible for one well-meaning human. The answer is a tentative “Yes,” which ends this evening of catastrophe on an upbeat note.
Credit also goes to Laura Lowe for her simple but evocative sets, to Caroline Daniels for the lighting, and to Amanda Sims McLoughlin for the costumes well-matched to each character.
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(Photo: Eliza Alden Photography)
