Profile Theatre’s commitment to producing plays by women and people of color continues this month, in a new double season focused on playwrights Anna Deavere Smith and Lisa Kron. First up: Kron’s 2.5 Minute Ride, an autobiographical solo show that packs volumes into 75 minutes with Kron stand-in Lisa (Allison Mickelsen, last seen as an Alison Bechdel proxy in another autobiographical show, Portland Center Stage’s Fun Home).
Lisa’s a bundle of nerves, someone who talks her way convulsively through moments of discomfort. In a free-wheeling monologue that covers the idiosyncrasies of the Midwest (“Health food in the Midwest is anything in a pita”) and two family trips—one to Sandusky, Ohio’s Cedar Point amusement park, the other to Auschwitz—Lisa is a friendly Virgil shepherding us through her attempts to understand her father, a Holocaust survivor and roller coaster enthusiast.
Though its central metaphor feels forced at times, Kron’s script contains no didactic bludgeoning or gratuitous accounts of violence. Instead, her seemingly breezy treatment allows for an oblique, somewhat shielded entry into trauma. While there’s no way to capture individual suffering with complete accuracy in any work of art, it’s to Kron’s credit that her script prompts examination of trauma less through what’s said than through silence. “You all already know what this looks like, right?” she says, recounting the trip to Auschwitz with her father. “You’ve seen these images before. You don’t need me to describe this to you.”