Amphibious theater is not all it’s cracked up to be.
B3 Productions’ “FrogWoman,” written by Chris Danowski, is filled to the brim with intriguing yet scattered plotlines that brighten the stage like colorful threads. Disappointingly, these threads never weave together into the vibrant tapestry one would expect.
This leaves “FrogWoman” feeling like a mystery that’s cut short before the solution.
The play loosely follows FrogWoman, a wealthy actress who transformed into a frog through surgery.
Ilana Lydia infuses an old-fashioned flavor to her character; with her flowing costume, Trans-Atlantic accent and slightly unsettling demeanor, she’s reminiscent of Sunset Boulevard’s Norma Desmond. While FrogWoman and money-smooching Producer (Ashley Naftule) are reminiscent of the past, they are where the nostalgia ends, as the rest of the characters offer a far more modern tone.
Despite a slow start establishing the cast, including FrogWoman’s #1 Fan (Sky Donovan), along with her maniacal fan club of FrogWomanheads (Marcella Grassa, Lindsey Gemme and Dayna Donovan), events are kicked into motion once FrogWoman and Producer crash their car.
FrogWoman leaves and gets out of the car, but then a rewind noise plays as she gets back into the car (suggesting a time travel, which is never again touched upon).
Then, suddenly, FrogWoman is said to have escaped and Producer has gone mad. Soon, he strips away his suspenders and graces the stage with nothing more than socks, a pair of boxers, a tie, and bloody bandages suggesting a head injury.
Perhaps due to their lack of development, there are no emotional stakes for the audience when watching these characters go through trials and tribulations. In fact, a lack of depth plagues every character in the production, despite the cast’s impressive enthusiasm and palpable passion.
Humor weaves throughout the actors’ scenes, sometimes in bizarrely funny ways: when Fan is first shown, he’s sobbing while watching a movie about frogs and stuffing his face with popcorn. Two kernels fall from his mouth and onto the stage. A few scenes later, Producer picks up two of the kernels and casually eats them while addressing the audience. Little moments like these are a brilliant use of the story’s strangeness, and I wish there were more of them.
It’s a treat to watch Sky Donovan as Fan hilariously contorts his body while going through questionable, unclear therapy to accept his inner frog, screeching loudly enough to fill the theater and giving his all to the role.
Marcella Grassa steals the show as the ringleader of fanatic FrogWomanheads, gracefully walking the edge between disturbingly intimidating and comically likable.
Dayna Donovan plays the role of a sarcastic straight man with amusing perfection.
Her small expressions and intonations infuse her various roles with character—the only problem is, all three of the roles she’s given share similar personalities, whether it’s Susan-Bob-Frog, Burley 3, or FrogWomanhead3, making them easy to confuse.
Lindsey Gemme is hilarious to watch, whether she’s struggling to get up off of a bean bag or as FrogWomanhead2 or playing off of Sky Donovan in a bizarre back-and-forth as the SueBobFrogs (we’ll get to them in a minute).
While the actors threw themselves onto bean bags or shouted abstract lines about surgery and humanity, I racked my brain for the play’s deeper meaning.
What was it saying about surgery, society, the earth’s bones and the differences between mammals and amphibians? How do all the different elements of the play come together in a cohesive, understandable world?
According to the play’s description, the world is controlled by an unseen Voice of Authority (Juliet Rachel Wilkins), but as it only controls certain characters, it’s unclear what the purpose of this voice is. The Voice mostly controls three friends who are on a constant merry-go-round of surgeries that slice and stretch their bodies so that they flip-flop both genders and species.
Over the course of the play, they transform from three guys named Bob to Sue and then to BobSueFrog. Played by Sky Donovan, Lindsey Gemme and Dayna Donovan, the trio of knife-happy friends offer amusing interludes, but they are wholly disconnected from the rest of the story, and their significance is never explained.
They—along with the disembodied voice—could be cut from the play, and it would work just as well.
Trying to explain the plotline is like chasing memories from a fever dream.
The lack of clarity in the script makes the story of “FrogWoman” ring hollow, especially because with a serious rewrite I can see how it could shine. The potential of a bizarre, otherworldy fantasy is at the edge of every scene, but it never comes to fruition, largely due to a too-large cast of confusing characters, none of whom are easy to root for despite the actors’ admirable performances.
Director RC Contreras, who doubles as set designer, keeps the scenes flowing smoothly, but once or twice transitions were interrupted by unexplained artistic decisions by lighting designer Austin Welles. At one point, a character left the scene and the lights fell, leaving FrogWoman alone in the dark. A few seconds later, the lights rose, and FrogWoman stood in the light, silent. Then the lights fell and the scene switched.
One moment in which the lighting worked well was during FrogWoman’s scene in her hit movie “Atlantis,” in which the set is bathed in blue light and she steps forward so that her face is out of the light. When she leans forward and speaks to the ground, it gives an impressive, eerie and almost monstrous feel that’s impressively effective.
Sometimes, it’s great to take a chance. It’s always admirable when a production takes a risk. Artistic risks can reap great rewards and be a hugely rewarding experience both for the cast and the audience.
FrogWoman is a performance full of contagious enthusiasm, but its bizarre and meandering fixation on cold-blooded amphibians cools any hot-blooded passion its crew could hope to kindle.
FrogWoman plays on 12/7, 12/8, 12/14 and 12/15 at 8 p.m. at Aside Theatre Company. There is a matinee on 12/9 and 12/16 at 2 p.m. Tickets and more information can be found at asidetheatre.com.
Contact the reporter at sosulli2@asu.edu.
