Theater review: Indoor/Outdoor

by Richard Goulde of John Garcia's The Column

An unexpected delight.

Funny, quirky and clever – Indoor/Outdoor (now playing at the WaterTower Theatre at the Addison Theatre Center) portrays the memoirs of a housecat named Samantha (Jessica Cavanagh Wiggers). After she's born, Samantha is taken to an animal shelter, where neurotic human Shuman (Regan Adair) adopts her. As Samantha grows, she develops a love affair (through a window, apparently) with an alley cat named Oscar (Joey Folsom). Desperate to escape the confines of the house, she embarks on a rampage of household destruction. Slightly unhinged "cat therapist" Matilda (Renee Krapff) tries to mediate between cat and owner, to no immediate avail. When Samantha does finally "escape," she finds the experience is not entirely what she expects.

Wiggers is superb in the lead role, her performance natural and completely believable, all while portraying an animal, no less! Her role is also dialogue- and monologue-dense; an awful lot of memorization went into her performance. Plus, she pulls off the humor with aplomb.

It's a very funny play. No, not all the jokes land (do they ever?), but more hit than not; and it's a fantastic blend of one-liners, physical comedy and amusing pop-cultural references. (Thankfully, the references are not esoteric; pretty much everyone will get them).

The choreography of the play is also well-done. It seems apparent that director Terry Martin attends to detail, and it makes a difference. The blocking of each scene, and the body language of each actor, are all spot on. Particularly considering this is a play with very few tactile props, all the actors (and again, especially Wiggers) handle their own movements very well.

Take hands, for example. It's subtle; the audience won't notice an actor's hands until it goes wrong, and the physicality is awkward and unnatural. No worries here. Between the direction and actors' instincts, even with so few props, the motion of the play is fluid, organic and contributes perfectly to the rhythm and flow of the story.

But speaking of rhythm, we do encounter a problem: an inconsistent tone. The performance can't seem to decide what kind of play it wants to be. It jumps from a sophisticated social commentary to a live-action cartoon, not just from scene to scene, but one line to the next. Wiggers keeps her performance nicely understated, while Adair and Krapff exaggerate their characters into comic book proportions. Yes, the humor calls for an over-the-top performance, and Adair and Krapff deftly plumb their characters for laughs. But their performances don't match the tone of Wiggers' or Folsom's.

I'm not sure what the director was thinking in prompting his actors to take such divergent tones in their performances. Perhaps he wanted the cats to seem more human, and the humans to seem more cartoonish. It doesn't work, though. The result is that the play feels uneven, sometimes even jarring.

Also, sometimes the play seems aimed at kids and families; at other times, it is distinctly inappropriate for younger audiences (including sexual innuendo and at least one instance of not-kid-friendly language).

Along the same theme, the end of the story is out of sync with the rest of the play, which is quite funny. The conclusion is certainly moving; and in many ways, it's appropriate. But again, it's jarring. Some plays intentionally want to have that effect on audiences, but it's not helpful for this play.

Thankfully, the strong elements more than compensate for this tonal inconsistency.

Set design is mixed. It's actually rather clever in its versatility. At first it comes across as Spartan, but as it evolves over the course of the play, the set's ability to stand for so many different places is remarkable. It's beautiful even, with scenes of nature projected onto the set pieces from time to time. During at least a couple of those moments, I was sorry when the projection ended because it was so nice looking! Set designer Michael Sullivan did a nice job in crafting the audience's visual field.

But there's an unavoidable flaw in the way the set has been built: there are a lot of moving pieces that require manual labor to adjust, and the scene shifts are too distracting. Further, some stagehands – dressed all in white – enter the stage from time to time to help move pieces around, and they don't help. It's a clever set design, but its implementation risks pulling the audience out of the story and breaking the rhythm.

I also have mixed feelings about the costume choices. Folsom is the only actor to undergo more than two costume changes. Costume designer Barbara Cox did a great job with his character. He plays a variety of distinct roles; and between a knack for accents and his diverse costumes, Folsom proves himself to be quite the little acting chameleon.

Outside of that, everyone is just in casual wear. I'm torn between thinking the cats (Samantha and Oscar) need SOMETHING to set them apart. But as the play continues, it also seems somehow appropriate. Shuman sees a difference between himself and the cats; but Samantha doesn't. From her perspective, they're all people. I suspect pet owners will be able to reference that attitude in their own pets.

Which is the most interesting aspect of the play. I enjoyed the juxtaposition of animal behavior and human society. Everything Samantha does – from cuddling with Shuman to making messes outside the litter box – makes perfect sense for a cat, explained in human terms. At the same time, that she's a different species necessarily raises communication issues, which the writer Kenny Finkle uses to comment on human relationships. Not only is it a fun and funny play, it's smart.

Minor flaws notwithstanding, it's a great play. Definitely a show for cat lovers, but it's not a requirement to like felines. I favor dogs myself, and I still got a big kick out of the show.

Highly recommended.