Stage Review - Small Mouth Sounds (Lesser Known Players)
Stage Review - Small Mouth Sounds
Presented By: Lesser Known Players - Bainbridge Grange Hall, Bainbridge Island, WA
Show Run: April 05 - April 14, 2024
Date Reviewed: Saturday, April 06, 2024 (Opening Weekend)
Reviewed By: Greg Heilman
We humans are a noisy bunch. There’s no better way to understand this than by taking a walk in the woods. Even there, if you stop walking for a minute, it’s more than likely you’ll hear the audible impact of humans, sounds of cars in the distance, airplanes. As a result, it’s rare the opportunity to get away absolutely from any evidence of our humanity. That said, when those opportunities do present themselves, only then can we truly discover ourselves, free of distractions and judgment. Such is the idea behind a silent retreat. These are getaways, usually week or ten days, where folks can go to get away from their day to day and join a group of cohabitants to follow a program of thought provoking activities that provide opportunities for introspection and ultimately a degree of self-improvement. The catch with this sort of getaway is clearly spelled out in its name, they’re completely silent. Guests are not allowed to talk to each other, or even to themselves, audibly of course. The entire activity is conducted in silence, except for the session leader or leaders. As we all know, when humans get together, it’s never clear how things will transpire, and even in a situation that seems so serious, there’s always room for humor. This is the premise of Small Mouth Sounds, written by Drama Desk Award winner Bess Wohl, and the latest show being put up by The Lesser Known Players. The production, under the direction of Kristi Ann Jacobson, runs through April 14 on stage at the Grange Hall on Bainbridge Island and tells the story of six unlikely guests brought together, each learning how to face each other and themselves, how to communicate without saying a word, and how to get the most of their time together. But leave it up to this group to take a story with so little dialogue and make it so impactful that you’ll talk more on the drive home about the show than the actors do in the show itself.
When the lights come up on Small Mouth Sounds, there are only six solitary chairs on the floor of the Grange Hall, in front of and below the stage. One by one, each of the six guests attending the silent retreat enter, starting with Jan (George Shannon). Jan takes a seat, reviews his session packet, and awaits the start of the activities. Next is Rodney (Tyler Weaver), who enters with the look of a guru, dressed like he’s a pro at this sort of thing, then proceeds immediately to kick his shoes off before sitting on the floor, legs crossed, and meditating. Jan, seeing this, takes his shoes off as well and starts mimicking the “hmmm” that Rodney is murmuring in his meditation. The rest of the group meanders in following this pair, Ned (Joel Kullberg), Alicia (Ruthann Saunders), and finally friends Joan (Charlie Malo) and Judy (Blaire Burdey). In a prime example of the little things that this play does so well, every one who enters after seeing Rodney’s bare feet takes their shoes off, thinking that because he looks like a guru, he must know how this all works. The show deals so well with the personas we present outwardly, and the notions that are conceived as a result. We as humans, as much as we don’t like to admit it, do judge our proverbial books by their covers. But what everyone learns over the next few days at the retreat is that the practice is ill advised, people are rarely what they portray to the outside world, and when we each take the time to discover who we really are and start to accept that, only then do we start to project our true selves, and people see us for who we are, good and bad. All this is done in silence, well for the most part. There are the odd slip-ups, many in the service of the humor of the show, but the only one who does talk regularly is the Teacher (Karen Hauser). The audience never sees the one who leads the “campers” through their activities, but her voice is ever present.
Once the group is given their first assignment, they get up from their chairs and proceed to where they’re going to sleep, three compartments in which they roll out their sleeping mats and get as comfortable as they can, given the circumstances. The set here is a decently sized structure, on the stage of the hall, with three distinct compartments. Gary Fetterplace designed and built this piece of the set, and he’s done a nice job, creating distinct sleeping areas while keeping the design simple. Watching these actors navigate their way through setting up for the night while not saying a word to each other is a wonderful display of humor in the physical sense, and illustrates the simplicity and beauty of the storytelling here. Rodney is paired with Ned, and the two couldn’t be more different. Tyler’s Rodney is aloof, the guru that is a professional in a world of amateurs, while Joel plays Ned as the nervous newbie who wants to make sure that he does all the right things to get the most out of the retreat. Meanwhile friends Joan and Judy share a “cabin”, as do Jan and Alicia. George’s Jan follows the rules of the retreat to the letter, constantly taking notes and doing his best to make sure he doesn’t utter a word, and that Alicia doesn’t either, while Alicia is trying her best to avoid roughing it. I really like Ruthann’s portrayal of Alicia, it’s never really clear why she is attending and she’s treating it more like a camping trip than a self-help retreat, but watching her character be herself throughout is refreshing in contrast to the others who all seem to be pretending to be someone else. It becomes clear as the play progresses why the others are here, and to watch them each discover what it is about themselves that has led to this convergence of personalities, and the transformations that result shows the talent of this cast, especially considering it’s done virtually with no dialogue. Each of the actors needs to determine how their character will communicate in general, not to mention expressing emotions like frustration, anger, and sadness. The whole of this is done very well, and the cast captures the humor of the situation, too, though most of that comes from Karen Hauser’s teacher. Her thick Central European accent hints of a Dr. Ruth with her own issues that she hasn’t really dealt with. While the majority of the cast shows how well they can perform with actions as opposed to words, Karen’s performance is the exact opposite, and just as good.
Sometimes the best art happens in the smallest ways, the ability to change a mood with the slightest action or the ability to convey a transformational story with a minimal design and dialogue. It’s not just that Small Mouth Sounds is less than complex in and of itself, because it is, but the telling of it requires a cast that is able to convey anything from the absurd to the nuanced physically, and to use what little dialogue there is to full advantage. Kristi Ann Jacobson has assembled such a cast here, a group that knows how to deliver these roles individually while at the same time playing off each other in a way that shows that if we look past the facades that we as humans put up, whether they are for self-protection or otherwise, what lies beneath is beautiful, scars and all.
The Lesser Known Players production of Small Mouth Sounds runs on stage at the Grange Hall on Bainbridge Island through April 14. For more information, including ticket availability and purchase, visit https://www.lesserknownplayers.org/.
