The dark between 'Earth and Sky'
By Jana J. Monji 07/03/2008
It is a dark and stormy night in the “contemporary urban underworld,” somewhere in the USA where cellular phones do not yet exist and young part-time librarians and full-time poets solve mysteries. Yes, you do have to suspend your disbelief for Douglas Post’s “Earth and Sky” as the production at the Sierra Madre Playhouse veers from parody to serious pseudo-reality noir.
Set designer David Calhoun constructed a wonderfully gritty black-and-white cityscape where young poet Sara (Kristi Leigh Snyder) falls in love (and soon into bed) with restaurant owner David (Richard Trujillo), who is up to his neck in debt. David is murdered and implicated in a nasty kidnap, rape and murder. Sara doesn’t believe the story told about her love by two old-school detectives, the always-eating Kersnowski (Dennis Delsing) and the skirt-chasing Weber (Brian Francis).
Post’s script divides the action between the past and the present. The progression of David and Sarah’s two-month romance plays backwards from their last phone conversation to their first meeting while Sarah’s sleuthing is in chronological order. Under the direction of Jerry Morrison, Delsing’s Kersnowski and Francis’ Weber are almost parodies of TV show detectives. In their black, crumpled raincoats they seem to be slumping into Columbo territory, but Columbo would have asked costume designer Lois Tedrow why Sara was dressed in a thin fluttery dress if the weather is so damp. Think wet T-shirt contest and you’ll understand how practical that is.
Luckily, there is no water, just a lot of atmospheric sound effects courtesy of sound designer Barry Schwam, but what is also not seen is the development of Snyder’s Sara from a timid librarian to the strong woman who recklessly and stupidly strides into meetings with hit men (Terrence Gehr Cody and Thom Sanford). She seems too intelligent to be going alone, out on a dark and stormy night to meet known killers such as king of the slice-and-dice Eisenstadt (Cody).
Yet the delicate development of a trusting relationship between Trujillo’s David and Snyder’s Sara has some truth to it, especially when we finally see their chemistry during their initial meeting — both tentatively reaching out and yearning for a true connection, made all the more poignant because we already know how it ends.
“Earth and Sky” continues at 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and at 2:30 p.m. Sundays.through Aug. 9 at the Sierra Madre Playhouse, 87 W. Sierra Madre Blvd., Sierra Madre. Call (626) 256-3809 or visit www.sierramadreplayhouse.org.
DIGG | del.icio.us | REDDIT