Dennis Lehane’s only play Coronado gets the Fringe treatment. (Photo courtesy of Capital Fringe)
By DCist contributor Allie Goldstein
Reminds us of: Dennis Lehane trying to write a play (oh, wait…)
Flop, Fine or Fringe-tastic: Fine.
In Coronado, Charlottesville-based Gorilla Theater Productions brings novelist Dennis Lehane’s (Mystic River, Shutter Island) only play to the Fringe stage, but has trouble staging a dialogue-packed script that could have benefited from more time cues.
The play’s first act is set in a gritty dive bar where three pairs—an adulterous couple, a father and son, and a woman and her therapist—alternately spring into action or fall silent as the attention shifts from one table to the next. With a murder plot, a diamond heist, and a salacious doctor-patient affair, the conversations are not short on intrigue, and yet a combination of a confusing script and mumbled delivery makes them drag at times.
At the start of Coronado’s second act, the action abandons the bar setting (by now getting tedious) and introduces Kendall A. Stewart, the show’s director, as the feisty Gwen. Her push-pull interactions with Jack Rakes (Bobby) are some of the show’s few moments of convincing chemistry. The scenes with Andy Davis as Will and Anna Lien as Gina also grow more electric as the couple’s once sex-charged gazes turn into contentious glares.
The second act also benefits from the weaving together of the three storylines, though Stewart’s minimalist staging and the actors’ snap-quick delivery of their lines make it difficult to catch all the connections. In the end, Coronado delivers some of the thrilling plot twists that fans of Lehane have come to expect but makes it clear that the author’s work is best fit for the page, not the stage.
When to See It: Westminster Presbyterian Church, 400 I St SW
When to See It: Thursday, July 19 at 8:15 p.m., Saturday, July 21 at 6:45 p.m, Sunday, July 22 at 1:30 p.m., or Saturday, July 28 at 4:45 p.m.
Check out all of our coverage of this year’s Capital Fringe Festival here.
