By Hamish Linklater
Directed by Kari Hayter
Strangers, a woman and a boy, on a cold, road at night, next to a cemetery, waiting for a bus. The bus is late. The woman sinks into herself, her coat hanging crooked, too thin for this cold night. Things couldn’t be worse. She has some ominous connection with the nearby hospital. She’s unresponsive to the fast-talking teenager who works to engage her with everything from philosophical riffs to brash seduction. Neither knows what this night holds in store. Hamish Linklater’s funny and ultimately spooky debut play explores life, death, and Doritos as these two characters cling to a temporary escape from loneliness.
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There isn’t a monster, per se, in Hamish Linklater’s engaging, compassionate dark comedy The Vandal. But Linklater, a stage and screen actor of no small repute, does set his three-character play in a graveyard and, far creepier, a public bus stop. But there are ghosts in this piece-—those of lost spouses and parents who never materialize, but are never too far way. And thanks to crisp direction by Kari Hayter and three standout performances, we see the cumulative weight of those ghosts, or memories, upon the central characters...
Director Kari Hayter has injected the production with a keen sense of human need, loss and desire as she moves the story gradually along an uncharted road. Each new revelation contains a throat-catching element that allows playgoers to view these characters in a different light.
All three actors are excellent, but Amanda Zarr delivers an especially outstanding performance as the woman, initially shrouded in mystery, who — under the influence of beer and hard liquor — sheds her hard veneer along with her inhibitions. Zarr excels in the most difficult and challenging assignment as she interacts, alternately, with the other two performers.
Now making its West Coast premiere, the play is a meditation on truth, lies, and when each are preferred, and Chance Theater takes up the challenge with gusto...
Kari Hayter's direction coaxes layered performances from each actor that serve to smooth over both rough and slow spots in the script. The result is moody, focused, and eerie.
Directed by Kari Hayter, “The Vandal” has been expertly cast...
For all the intrinsic appeal of Linklater’s literate script, it’s the actors who fill in the blanks—a task that should not be trusted to anyone less skilled than the three thespians astutely cast here.
Director Kari Hayter and her three member cast are so tightly connected that the one act about 70 minutes long account digs into your brain that so much of what we are seeing and hearing becomes an exercise in ferreting out the truth, or just accepting that it is their reality and move on.
Hamish Linklater’s “The Vandal” (continuing in its West Coast premiere at the Chance Theater in Anaheim Hills through October 20) is one of those plays that doesn’t spell everything out for the audience, and is the more compelling for it.
In this West Coast premiere, Kari Hayter’s no-nonsense direction at the Chance Theatre keeps the show well-grounded and intimate. She brings out the humor and humanity of the script, allowing the philosophy to flow from the characters’ — not the author’s — mouths. The performances she elicits are naturalistic, exciting and precise.
Linklater has written a lovely little paean to loneliness and the need for human contact. It’s wordy yet succinct, a quickly evolving 80 minutes with plenty of humor as well as pathos. Kari Hayter has skillfully directed her trio of actors, imbuing the staging in the intimate Fyda-Mar Stage with intimacy and heart.
...What unfolds from there is somewhat eerie but also amusing and, finally, poignant. Lasting just more than 70 minutes, the play feels slight, yet its philosophy and raw humanity worm themselves deep into viewers’ minds.
“The Vandal” is the strongest production on Chance’s second stage since last year’s galvanizing “The Other Place.” That one was must see; this one is its sequel in a “run-don’t-walk” way.
Action wise, The Vandal is fairly uneventful, but also comes across as surprisingly lively as both the actors and the direction used is pretty effective. There are a few elements that could have enhanced this moody, dark and comedic drama.
It’s the “and then” that makes Hamish Linklater’s The Vandal a quirkily comedic, profoundly moving 80-minute wonder in its Chance Theater West Coast Premiere. Expect to be mesmerized.
There isn’t a monster, per se, in Hamish Linklater’s engaging, compassionate dark comedy The Vandal. But Linklater, a stage and screen actor of no small repute, does set his three-character play in a graveyard and, far creepier, a public bus stop. But there are ghosts in this piece-—those of lost spouses and parents who never materialize, but are never too far way. And thanks to crisp direction by Kari Hayter and three standout performances, we see the cumulative weight of those ghosts, or memories, upon the central characters...
Director Kari Hayter has injected the production with a keen sense of human need, loss and desire as she moves the story gradually along an uncharted road. Each new revelation contains a throat-catching element that allows playgoers to view these characters in a different light.
All three actors are excellent, but Amanda Zarr delivers an especially outstanding performance as the woman, initially shrouded in mystery, who — under the influence of beer and hard liquor — sheds her hard veneer along with her inhibitions. Zarr excels in the most difficult and challenging assignment as she interacts, alternately, with the other two performers.
Now making its West Coast premiere, the play is a meditation on truth, lies, and when each are preferred, and Chance Theater takes up the challenge with gusto...
Kari Hayter's direction coaxes layered performances from each actor that serve to smooth over both rough and slow spots in the script. The result is moody, focused, and eerie.
Directed by Kari Hayter, “The Vandal” has been expertly cast...
For all the intrinsic appeal of Linklater’s literate script, it’s the actors who fill in the blanks—a task that should not be trusted to anyone less skilled than the three thespians astutely cast here.
Director Kari Hayter and her three member cast are so tightly connected that the one act about 70 minutes long account digs into your brain that so much of what we are seeing and hearing becomes an exercise in ferreting out the truth, or just accepting that it is their reality and move on.
Hamish Linklater’s “The Vandal” (continuing in its West Coast premiere at the Chance Theater in Anaheim Hills through October 20) is one of those plays that doesn’t spell everything out for the audience, and is the more compelling for it.
In this West Coast premiere, Kari Hayter’s no-nonsense direction at the Chance Theatre keeps the show well-grounded and intimate. She brings out the humor and humanity of the script, allowing the philosophy to flow from the characters’ — not the author’s — mouths. The performances she elicits are naturalistic, exciting and precise.
Linklater has written a lovely little paean to loneliness and the need for human contact. It’s wordy yet succinct, a quickly evolving 80 minutes with plenty of humor as well as pathos. Kari Hayter has skillfully directed her trio of actors, imbuing the staging in the intimate Fyda-Mar Stage with intimacy and heart.
...What unfolds from there is somewhat eerie but also amusing and, finally, poignant. Lasting just more than 70 minutes, the play feels slight, yet its philosophy and raw humanity worm themselves deep into viewers’ minds.
“The Vandal” is the strongest production on Chance’s second stage since last year’s galvanizing “The Other Place.” That one was must see; this one is its sequel in a “run-don’t-walk” way.
Action wise, The Vandal is fairly uneventful, but also comes across as surprisingly lively as both the actors and the direction used is pretty effective. There are a few elements that could have enhanced this moody, dark and comedic drama.
It’s the “and then” that makes Hamish Linklater’s The Vandal a quirkily comedic, profoundly moving 80-minute wonder in its Chance Theater West Coast Premiere. Expect to be mesmerized.
