Lasso of Truth
Workhaus Collective and Walking Shadow Theatre Company
By Bev Wolfe
Lasso of Truth is the final play produced by the Workhaus Collective, which is ending its operation as a production company after ten years. It is being produced in association with Walking Shadow Theatre Company. During the Collective’s ten year history, it has produced twenty-five new plays and many of the writers it has helped develop have gone on both locally and nationally to develop new plays and win awards.
Carson Kreitzer, who is the current artistic director of the Collective, wrote Lasso and this play was originally produced at the Marin Theatre in Mill Valley, California. Although the play, itself, has limitations, Leah Cooper directs this local production with some of the best multi-media theatre that I have seen in theatre.
The show’s premise concerns the comic book hero “Wonder Woman” and its creator William Moulton Marston. Marston is also known for developing the lie detector and, probably not coincidentally, Wonder Woman uses a Lasso of Truth where those who are held by it must tell the truth.
The playwright’s note states these are fictional people and are known in the play by the titles of “The Inventor” (Marston), “the Wife,” (Marston’s wife), the “Amazon” (Olive Bryne), “the Girl” and “the Guy.” But much of this play centers on Marston’s kinky lifestyle with his wife and a former research assistant named Olive Bryne. This extended relationship lasted for more than a decade and the two woman continued as a family raising four children (two by each woman) decades after Marston’s death. All three had a mutual interest in bondage which directly influenced Marton’s use of bondage themes in “Wonder Woman.”
There are two secondary story lines, one with Gloria Steinem’s efforts to push the comic book publisher to make Wonder Woman what she was in the 1940’s instead of the modernized mini skirt wearing version that emerged in the sixties and seventies. Steinem was so focused on what Wonder Woman represented that she put the comic book image on the cover of the inaugural cover of “Ms. Magazine.”
The other storyline concerns the Girl who grew up reading Wonder Woman comics. She shares both what Wonder Woman meant to her and her efforts to obtain an original edition of the first issue from a comic book store owner.
Cooper uses three screens in this production, and provides the screen cartoon versions of Marston, his wife and Bryne. The use of these cartoon personas to tell the story at times is extremely clever and offer some of the most enjoyable moments in the play.
The first hour before the intermission is the best part of the show and the switching between stage actors and the cartoon screens really help create the feeling that one was in a comic book. Although an actor plays Steinem on the screen, she is also made to appear cartoonish in appearance in these filmed sequences.
The major drawback to the play is that certain story lines go on too long. What the initial shock value of Marston’s life story fades, the play keeps exploring the bondage story till it crosses from being interesting to uncomfortably voyeuristic. The better story line would have been to explore in more depth Marston’s failed efforts to make his lie detector a device that would be accepted by courts. Even the story with Steinem goes on too long and could have been concluded earlier.
The only story that sustained my interest throughout the play, despite the fact that it could have been an episode of the TV show “The Big Bang Theory,” was that of the Girl and the Guy with their surprise ending.
The show has an incredible cast. Stephen Yoakam plays the Marston’s character with great humor. Annie Enneking effectively plays both the accommodating wife who gradually develops her own interest in the bondage games as well as what can only be described as a slightly manic Steinem.
Meghan Kreidler plays the Bryne character and convincing shows her primary desires shifting from Marston’s to Marston’s wife. McKenna Kelly-Eiding as the Girl and John Riedlinger as the Guy have a great chemistry making believable the story line that her quest for a first edition of the Wonder Woman comic book results in her finding something much more important.
The technical staff did a great job putting together the different aspects of this show. Jacob Stoltz’s illustrations worked extremely well on the screens, and the lighting designer Michael P. Kittell, sound designer Dan Dukich and the projection designer Davey T. Steinman all worked well together to create the ultimate comic book experience.
Performances are at the Playwrights’ Center
2301 E Franklin Ave, Minneapolis, MN 55406
Performances at 7:30 p.m. through Sat. April 30, 2016
With a 2 p.m. performance on May 1, 2016
Tickets are available on line at: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/2497736
or call Brown Paper Tickets at: 1-800=838-3006*
*This has been a very popular show and there is limited seating at Playwrights Center so those planning to attend should call to reserve your tickets.
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