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Chisa Hutchinson

Proof of Love

May 24, 2019

Never really losing her cool, Pressley always commands the stage even though scenic designer Alexis Distler has made it difficult by creating a huge private room, beautiful in its understated way in blues and beiges, but difficult for one person to fill the space. Yes, Maurice is presumed to be in his hospital bed on stage right, and Lashonda is on the smartphone, but Pressley must negotiate the entire stage herself. Director Jade King Carroll has found reasons for her to move around from chair to sofa to a chair on the other side of the room, but has not helped much in making the play build an arc. The effective lighting by Mary Louise Geiger subtly shifts from afternoon to evening light without our realizing how much time has passed. [more]

Surely Goodness and Mercy

March 14, 2019

Chisa Hutchinson’s "Surely Goodness and Mercy" has its heart in the right place but as produced by Keen Company at the Clurman Theatre it is not a play at all but an after school movie script. We know we are in trouble when we see seven sets side by side on stage on three levels when we first enter the theater. Jessi D. Hill has directed her adept cast to believable characterizations but the script is so short at 73 minutes (plus a totally unnecessary intermission) and the 30 scenes so brief (some no more than four exchanges) that we never learn enough about them. It is as though the whole story has been told in a kind of shorthand and we are expected to fill in the dots. [more]