Fort Worth — At this point, we've seen so many portrayals of quirky-creepy characters on film, TV and stage that it's all but impossible not to make comparisons. In the best cases, it's not the fault of the actor whose performance is being compared to someone else's, but rather the result of something that strikes such a clear and memorable tone that you can't help remembering the greatness that preceded it.
With that in mind, you'll be forgiven if you are reminded of Rainn Wilson (mostly his character Arthur from Six Feet Under, but a little of Dwight Schrute too) when watching Jonathan Fielding's performance in Morris Panych's Vigil at Amphibian Stage Productions. And OK, throw in a smattering of Anthony Perkins in Psycho and Kathy Bates in Misery. Except without the blood-curdlling horror.
To be sure, Vigil is occasionally horrifying, has some unexpected twists, and the stench of death permeates. But it's also deadly funny. This black comedy is so dark that at certain points you feel throw-up-in-your-mouth-guilty for laughing. You know what they say about hell being more fun because all your friends will be there? That.
Fielding plays Kemp, a lonely man who shows up in the apartment of his dying aunt, Grace (Elly Lindsay), to take care of her, in more ways than one. His plan is to be included in her will and then at least his sad-sack existence will be a little less sad, because of the money he didn't have to work for.
Or so he thinks.
The rub is that Grace is spunkier than he thought, and he ends up living with her for about a year, awaiting her demise. A few times, including one that's a hilarious backfire, he even tries to expedite it. And she knows what he's doing. How could she not when he's asking her about urns and telling her not to put on makeup because that's the mortician's job?
In the course of nearly two hours, we learn a lot about Kemp, mainly because he has 99.5 percent of the play's lines. His dad was a failed magician and manic depressive. His mom tried her best to make Kemp gay (a few costume changes play off this bizarro notion in a hysterical way). There's pretty much no way this kid could have turned out whatever the current definition of "normal" is.
We learn tidbits about Grace too, mostly through Kemp's stories. Although she's onstage the entire show, she spends much of it in bed listening to (or pretending to ignore) him, and reacting. She grows to like him in the same twisted way that we, the audience, do. Yeah, the guy's a creepazoid. Still, you kind of want to take him home and feed him a bowl of soup.
A big part of that is courtesy of Fielding's portrayal. You can imagine all the different ways this character could be portrayed, and how Kemp might be downright icky. Under the direction of Andrew Volkoff, Fielding sticks the landing with the right ratio of ookiness and charm. Somewhere under the tweed, the thick black glasses (costumes are by Susan Austin) and that veneer of heartlessness, there's a lovable loser—lovable because he's recognizable. His mistakes are the sort of dumb self-defeating stunts that we all pull, and then later laugh at, if uncomfortably.
Lindsay pulls off a pretty amazing feat, too, in that her acting task requires her to use facial expressions, reactions, physical comedy and well-placed inflection on her few lines of dialogue to make it work. One of the first things she utters is a simple "oh," and it's one of the biggest laughs of the show. She does the image of the lonely but spunky elderly person proud.
In the play's first 20 minutes or so, you realize that with all the short scenes (some of them seconds-long, and with no dialogue), it could be a long sit. But Volkoff paces it at a thoughtful gait, with big-time help from lighting designers Chad R. Jung and Aaron Lentz. In recent years, Amphibian has pushed the limits of the black box space that is the Sanders Theatre at the Fort Worth Community Arts Center, and come away with some remarkable sets. With Vigil, scenic designer Sean Urbantke does it again.
The walls of Grace's apartment are evidence of egregious neglect from everyone in these characters' lives. Whereas many would consider it irreparable, others would notice the value of some TLC. The play's ending is on the sentimental side, but any other choice would have been cynical on the playright's part.
This dark Vigil comes with a candle's flicker of hope.
◊ Just for fun, here's Amphibian's video promo for their production:
