“One Flea Spare” with Connective Theatre Company

Connective Theatre Company has debuted on the Chicago storefront theatre scene with its inaugural production of One Flea Spare by Naomi Wallace. For this production, Connective Theatre Company has partnered with RefugeeOne (a local refugee resettlement organization) to raise awareness about refugee displacement. Co-directed by Brian Zane (who also treads the stage in this production) and Ashley Joy, the play takes place in 17th century London and unfurls over the course of 28 days. If this first show is indicative of the work to come from this company, then it’s a plague that I’ll gladly get infected by. 

We start this mad adventure with a wealthy couple, the Snelgraves, on the last day of a four week quarantine. Itching to leave their home, those plans are derailed when two “plague refugees,” a young woman and a sailor, break into their home. They are all four then re-quarantined in the Snelgrave’s house. As all inhabitants experience cabin fever, the plague has never been so intimate or intriguing. Mr. William Snelgrave tries his best to assert his dominance as the patriarch of the household, but ultimately fails. His pomp and shallow heart, exquisitely portrayed by Tim Kough, isolates him from the others quarantined in the household. His wife, who is only his wife legally and not emotionally or physically at this point, is played plaintively by Rosalind Hurwitz. Hurwitz’s pathos and tender eyes transform Mrs. Snelgrave into the archetype of a child who has been denied a motherly touch for too long, who then reaches out in longing for emotional and physical connection with the remaining two inhabitants: Bunce, a sailor, and Morse, a young girl with a secretive past. 

Taylor McWilliams-Woods, as the birdlike Morse, opens and closes the show with monologues told with thrilling ferocity. From the moment she lifts her eyes, with laser beam focus, into the walkway parting the audience, we are hooked. This is not a songbird. No, McWilliams-Woods’ mischievous young girl is a bird of prey. Joining the household/prison is Bunce (Andrew Thorp, who also served as fight captain), a sailor who has deserted from every ship, person, and situation in his entire life. In a cast of big personalities, Thorp still stands out as the weather-worn common man due to his subtle performance of a man who has lived a mosaic of a life. If his acting is a car driving across the country, one would never be aware of the gear shifts; Thorp was so natural and unaffected. Rounding out the cast is Brian Zane as the smarmy and smug Kabe, who comes to guard the house but really just seeks to taunt, banter, and barter with the family inside. It is a testament to Zane’s talent on stage on and off, and to co-director Ashley Joy, that I forgot that Zane himself also directed the show. 

Through ingenious sound, lighting, scenic, and costume design, we are transported from a small, rectangular room on the fourth floor in a Chicago building to an upper class house in London in 1665. Josh Mather wove Baroque music to engulf us in the world of King Charles and the Commonwealth as well as to transition between scenes. Charles Blunt’s lighting design was just bright enough that the actors could be seen and appreciated, but dark enough to imply dark things lurking in the shadows. Hayley Wallenfeldt supplied both tattered outfits and gaudy ensembles for the actors to don. Wallenfeldt (scenic design) was joined by Robin Maegawa-Goeser (property design) to create the psychological jail in which the four actors were encased. The actors flip the back wall of the parlour room to reveal the outside window, where isolated scenes of contact with the outside world take place. A special nod must be given to Maya Jamner for her makeup design. There isn’t a lot of gore, but all instances of scars, blood, scabs, and sores were gasp inducing. 

In a play that deals with heated emotions of the mind, temper, and loins, it is very important that storefront theatres take the necessary precautions to ensure the safety of the audience and actors as well as the seeming-authenticity of the interactions. With fight choreography by Bobby Duncalf and intimacy design by Leah Huskey, we get the truth of the moments without losing momentum or becoming sloppy. In particular, there are moments of Morse’s sexuality which could have felt exploitative and exorbitant. However, the production’s script, directors, and Huskey gave Morse a sense of control in said scenes. 

Here is my last recommendation: the only problems were long scene transitions and costumes that accidentally broke. Perhaps the scene transitions only felt long because we were aching to see the next thing, and perhaps the scene transitions and costumes will get better as the run goes on. Even if they don’t, those are miniscule things to worry about. If people are willing to purchase $60 dollar tickets to see older theatre pieces that we all know are racist and sexist, but we shrug it off, then we should definitely be willing to “pay what we can” to see an intoxicatingly good production posing questions that will nag your brain like an itch you can’t scratch after leaving the theatre.

One Flea Spare performances run from July 5th to July 21st, with 7:30 pm performances on Fridays and Saturdays, and 3 pm matinees on Sundays. Tickets are available online for $15 on their website https://www.connectivetheatrecompany.com/, or $20 at the theatre door. This production plays at the Nox Arca Theatre at 4001 N. Ravenswood Avenue #405, Chicago, IL 60613. 

For more information about tickets, visit theatreinchicago.com.

For more information or to donate to RefugeeOne, visit http://www.refugeeone.org/ and http://www.refugeeone.org/donate.html. 

Highly Recommended 

Sophie Vitello