By the time I finish writing this and getting it published, Vanguard Milwaukee’s presentation of On The Exhale will have completed its run. It was scheduled for just four days and was performed in The Drawing Room of the Var Gallery’s South 5th Street location (just half a block or so north of National Ave). The stage was a simple black cube, raised a few feet above the floor, with folding chair seating on all four sides. Annika Perez-Krikorian directed and Emily Vitrano is the sole performer. We last saw Vitrano as newly-wed Corie in Renaissance Theaterworks delightful Barefoot In The Park.
This is quite different. Vitrano is a single mom college professor who has been confronted by male students demanding a grade change. She refuses. And the result isn’t a confident, I did the right thing. Instead it is nightmares that resolve into the student pulling a gun and shooting her. She takes some measures to protect herself in her office and one day hearing a commotion in the hall, runs to slam her door shut, only to realize the dean is trying to reach out to her. There is an active shooter situation going down, but not on their campus. Instead it is at her son’s elementary school and she rushes over their only to herded into groups with other parents…and she describes the roil of emotions she feels as she wait and waits…to finally be told her son is dead.
Her eventual response isn’t what I expected. It probably isn’t what you would expect. It probably isn’t what any of us would do in this situation. She mourns of course. In her own way. She pulls back from the other parents. She collects all of the news clippings, police documents, etc, and lays them out on the floor and tapes out the outline of her son and marks off the place where the shooter stood.
And then she goes down the real rabbit hole as she purchases the same make and model assault rifle that was used to murder her son. And she learns how to shoot it. And she masters it. And she comes to understand the feeling and control that a person can feel using just such a weapon, although she calls it a tool. And the rabbit hole gets deeper and she testifies before a legislative body and stalks an inattentive senator and does no harm, but leaves a trail that says in an obvious way, that he actually dodged a bullet.
This is an extremely emotional play that goes from fear, to loss, to anger, to defiance. How Vitrano managed to keep her own sanity through rehearsals and these four performances had to be a struggle. Because she has entirely internalized the character. Yes, she paces and stomps and shouts and poses with the implied gun and squats and spins and twirls around the stage. But there are more slight variations in her posture and gait that express the grief or anger or fear far more effectively. And it’s there in her eyes. Just watching her eyes tells the emotional story very clearly. Her eyes seem to harden and squint and blaze open in fear and actually redden and retreat on command. I couldn’t help but internalize her feelings as well. This was a completely unexpected and completely amazing performance.
On The Exhale was written by Martin Zimmerman.
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