![Samuel Watson and Allison Smith starred in "Brilliant Traces," a play that ran over the weekend in the Pavillion Theater.](http://mainecampus.bangorpublishing.netdna-cdn.com/files/2010/11/Play2-975x652.jpg "Samuel Watson and Allison Smith starred in "Brilliant Traces,\" a play that ran over the weekend in the Pavillion Theater.")
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“Brilliant Traces” opened Thursday and ran all weekend in the Pavillion Theater. The two-person play featured Allison Smith as Rosannah Deluce and Samuel Watson as Henry Harry. The production was solid and held up by honest performances by two fine actors. The play is set in a small, remote Alaskan cabin. It starts with Rosannah bursting in disoriented, wearing a wedding gown and ranting until she faints from mental and physical fatigue. As the play progresses, the audience learns more and more about each character’s checkered past. The set, designed by Tricia Hobbs, was perfect for both the play and Watson’s character. Henry is all about the basics and his cabin is about the essentials. There is a working sink, a stove, a bed, a gun and a table. There are lines in the play that reference his dissatisfaction with anything that does not have a specific purpose.
Smith’s performance was stellar — comparable to a young Mary-Louise Parker. She brought many in the audience to tears while describing her strained relationship with her father.
“He looked right into my face and saw nothing,” her character said.
This production allowed the audience to connect the dots between her reaction to her father and her fear of intimacy with other men.
Watson developed a strong character as well. There is a psychological power struggle between the two characters that would be much less interesting if it were one-sided. Particularly moving was his monologue concerning Annabele, his daughter.
Harry’s line, “You cooked my shoes,” is sustained throughout the whole play after some footwear ends up in the oven.
One of the issues with this production was that the performance surpassed the material — a good place to be as far as problems are concerned. Much of the dialogue is ambiguous and in narrative form — “It was like I was an animal of flight, but I was frozen.”
This might be poetic and have literary merit, but it’s not how real people talk. The play itself is one long exposition. The audience’s attention faded out every now and then when the language became too flowery.
“I don’t give a hoot when the storm is over,” would be a difficult line for Marlon Brando to deliver honestly, let alone a college actor. There is one scene early on, while Harry is washing Rosannah’s face and hands, where the action becomes repetitive. You can only wring a rag out for so long before the audience is going to tune out.
The technical aspects, however simple, added a lot to the atmosphere of the play. The blocking utilizes the whole space, including backstage, the broken fourth wall and underneath the audience. The constant blowing wind gives you a sense of the isolation that Henry feels when this is all he hears all the time. The duo plays off each other perfectly and together the two make the production work brilliantly.
