It begins simply enough: Faith Helma’s saucer eyes
stare back at us while she empties a grocery bag. Her look is
benevolent, serene, even inviting—like a human resources
executive or a Krishna. But unlike any sibling I’ve ever known.
This is how the conceit—and problem—is unveiled in
Everyone Who Looks Like You, Hand2Mouth’s daring though
ultimately trifling exercise in domestic drama. In the willful clash of
theatrical textures following Helma’s gaze, the five-strong cast flit
from gripping vignettes to modern dance pieces to heartfelt musical
numbers and back again, all to evoke the gauzy idea—if not always
to confront the firm reality—of family.
When the production falls down, it’s usually less to do with the
performances than it is some finicky stage direction highlighting the
theme (the benevolent gaze, which is picked up at different times by
each of the performers, is particularly irksome). Conflict after
conflict passes without so much as a raise in temperature—a
shouting match dissolves into a hug just when you’re beginning to learn
something about the characters; a video projection disappears right
when you wish it would burn brighter.
There’s not a dud in the cast: Helma is a necessarily quiet though
substantial presence in a production that sometimes feels like an
improv circle jerk; Julie Hammond hits the effervescent target Artistic
Director Jonathan Walters has optimistically hung in front of the
entire ensemble (her version of the benevolent stare being the most
grounded and least silly); Liz Hayden applies the right amount of
slapstick to the spacious blocking; Erin Leddy commands the stage,
especially when she’s addressing the audience; and Jerry Tischleder
manages to be charming despite being saddled with a half-shirt for much
of the play.
In a confident Brecht-meets-sketch comedy strategy, the actors make
no effort to assume characters, only the familial type appropriate to
each scene. As such, they plant one collective foot in the
self-consciously clever world of multimedia performance art
(microphones are in plain view and scenes often break into pre-taped
climaxes projected onto the Venetian blinds acting as stage curtain)
and the other in the more winsome terrain of improvisational games.
If the production feels a little rough-hewed, that might be because
it’s debuting as a sort of workshop (though the company is at pains not
to call it that—this current run is viewed as a “prelude” to its
full premiere this autumn). The five company members collaborated on
the script by wringing out their own experiences with parental
infidelity and sibling rivalry, to name just two of the
too-universal-to-be-entirely-interesting strands that are loosely
strung through the scenes. While Walters describes the proceedings as a
mash-up of performance styles, it may ring truer to call them a
patchwork exposing its seams. What’s important here, however, isn’t the
quilt itself but the style of its stitching. A bit of a letdown, sure.
But give Hand2Mouth a few more months and Everyone Who Looks Like
You might turn out to be more than this.