Is human life too demanding? Too structured? Try squid life! It’s great. All tentacles and rage-temper-tantrums as you bust out of your human-skin-suit to show your true pink, squishy, sucker-covered colors. Sound appealing? Or at least piquing to your interests? Then Squidsbury at Truepenny Projects is for you! Making its world premiere as a full-length, staged production, this quirky play, penned by playwright Chad Short, is as endearing as it is darkly mysterious, and is equal parts humorous and haunting. Directed by Tessara Morgan, Squidsbury presents a brilliant allegory— for lots of different things, which is what makes it so unique. The play itself, in a sense, is an ‘everyman’ (yes, we need a better word in our more expansive, non-binary world) play, because there is something in it for everyone and depending on who you are and where you are in your life at the time of ingestion, you can take away a totally different experience from anyone else while seeing it.
Labeling the play as either a comedy, or a dark comedy, or a drama with darkly humorous elements seems off-brand and inaccurate for what is actually happening in Chad Short’s story. The play is an enigma. And not in the sense that it doesn’t know what it’s trying to be, but rather that the play itself is undefinable because it will resonate and read so very differently for so many people. It could be a story about finding where you belong. It could be a story about feeling comfortable in your own skin (literally). It could be a story about surviving domestic abuse, accepting your existence as you transition from one lifestyle to the next, or even just about finding your way back home. While there are some triggering topics, the play itself is mostly laced with humor, albeit at times, dark humor, and has well-constructed characters which are threaded together by a suspension of disbelief in the land of magical realism. You’re going to have to go in fully prepared to accept that squids and other sea creatures are walking, talking entities who can exist on land. In a human suit.
Short’s work is complex; if you’re from the old-school of expecting stories to have a linear progression with a definitive beginning, middle, and an end, Short’s Squidsbury will meet you halfway. Things progress in a linear fashion but the ending of the play is inconclusive in that vexing fashion that forces you to think. If you are of a lazy brain, un-curious mind, or your thinking-box is closed off to interpretation, you may struggle with this production. While discussing the show’s conclusion in depth is out of the question— SPOILERS— it is safe to say that Squidsbury empties out into a vast ocean of possibilities, left up to each individual to interpret.
Director Tessara Morgan has assembled an impressive bunch of actors to give this curious characters a refreshing breath of life and has at her disposal a vastly talented creative team pushing the project into the limelight. Costume & Makeup Designer Amelia Karojic, Lighting Designer Eric Nightengale, Set Designer Luke Farley, and Sound Designers Chad Short, Tessara Morgan, and Brent Tomchick work as one masterful team to create a unique experience. Short’s soundscape in particular has the harrowing and haunting call of the of ocean always on the periphery or just in the background. Often there are lapping sounds, like water gently slapping at a pier or dockside. And there are some decidedly underwater soundbites too that really give the performance an otherworldly feel. Lighting Designer Eric Nightengale uses a combination of pops, gobos, and UV-black light to create a whole host of special effects that bring the more magical components of the play to life. This is particularly true at the end of the production as well as whenever Tina has one of her ‘outbursts.’ The show’s overall aesthetic and production design is quite impressive, especially considering the space. And the transformation from wall-papered interior to ‘aboard the cruise ship’ is deceptively simple but equal parts magical.
The hidden gem of this production is the puppetry work that features heavily into the performance. If you’re going to bring the component of a living squid, complete with tentacles, into your performance space— and you’re not going to stitch wobbly pink tubes onto a costume (an impossibility for this play as the tentacles take on a life of their own and become, in a sense, a secondary character to Tina)— there are a few ways to attempt to tackle such a feat. Director & Producer, and Puppet Designer Tessara Morgan woke up and chose puppets. With Puppet Design Consultant Jeff Miller and Jess Rassp on board, and Puppet Builder David Brasington involved, the execution of the tentacles alone are well worth the price of admission. There are other, brilliant, and extremely innovative puppet pieces that the audience gets to experience throughout the performance but their arrival and existence would spoil the fun and magic if discussed in any further detail. Suffice it to say the combined efforts of Morgan, Miller, Rassp, and Brasington are quite mystical and enchanting in a strangely surreal fashion. (Shout-out specifically to Brasington, credited also as Squid Puppeteer, as well as Jess Rassp and Isaiah Mason Harvey who embody those tentacles as secondary characters attached to Tina. They become intrinsically integral parts of both the narrative and Tina’s existence.)
There are so many magical components to the performance; the bizarre string of characters are just one more element in this deep-sea adventure. Todd (Bobby Henneberg) is the disagreeable and dislikable character (though some might argue that is the case for the character of Tim in this production as well.) Henneberg carefully toes the line of playing up a caricature-stereotype when it comes to this husband-figure who tries to pay-away his xenophobia by purchasing luxury for his ‘lesser affluent’ friends. Tim (Dorian Elie) is Tina’s husband and has a lot of bombastic temper-fits which could lead some to interpret his existence as ‘that of emotionally abusive spouse.’ Elie, who does a fine job of fleeing stage with stomach troubles all throughout the performance (don’t worry, it’s scripted) works well with Intimacy Consultant Bahar Baharloo to make the scenes with Tina (all of Tina) feel natural and safe (and also a little bit humorous.)
Larger than life and preceding their character into the room with an influx of tidal energy that could rival a tsunami, J Purnell Hargrove tackles the role of Tammy with such flare that they just might burn the building down. There are quite a few hilarious improvisational style moments (you can hear what’s coming out of Hargrove’s mouth is not the style of what Short has penned all around the rest of the script but in a wildly sort of intriguing way, it works very well to diffuse seriously tense moments) that accompany the character of Tammy whilst she is in Hargrove’s capable hands. The facial expressions, the overall liveliness that Hargrove brings to the scene is wild.
Teensy (Shana Herndon) and Tammy could have been sisters in a different play. (Or even lovers or married in a different story.) The Teensy character’s wildly over-the-top energy is similar to that of the Tammy character. Herndon brings sass and flare in equal parts but she also embodies the role of ‘supportive friend’ wholeheartedly, no questions asked. Herndon is portraying the type of person that you know you can call at 2:00am when you desperately need to make a body disappear and she won’t ask questions, she’ll just show up with a pickup, shovel, and tarp.
Tina (Maria Ortiz-Marquez) has a temper. Though it’s an understandable one. She’s being forced to live her best squid life repressed and physically squeezed inside a human suit! Ortiz-Marquez has a lot of great emotional expressions to portray and delivers what is arguably the most harrowing and heartbreaking moment in the production, which trails in on a bubbly stream of shenanigans and nonsense spearheaded by Teensy and Tammy. When she collapses in outraged fury and utter anguish on the floor over a discovery of her possessions it is a brutal gut-punch that knocks the wind out of you. Her balance between feeling lost, displaying fury, and trying to find her true place is an impressive novelty to observe.
Buckle up because here’s where the enigma-meter really goes off the charts. Ticket Taker (O’Malley Steuerman) and Ticket Taker (Caitlin Weaver) are the two most peculiar and yet the most fascinating character in the bunch. (And that’s saying something; the play’s protagonist is a damn talking squid stuffed into a human suit.) Describing Steuerman and Weaver’s performance simply cannot do it justice. Weaver trails along like a lackey or a junior or a second-in-command, possibly even an offspring; it’s impossible to say, but her character has priceless facial expressions and little moments that will leave you cracking up laughing as well as feeling this haunting chill running up your spine.
Steuerman, who is the ‘leader’ of the two, serves as a narrative conduit, a guiding light, an ethereal presence— again impossible to describe what exactly it is they are doing as this character but it’s intensely hypnotic and fascinating. Steuerman has precise comic timing, masterfully delivering all sorts of lines, and they are constantly hovering. (It’s unclearly if the Ticket Takers are meant to be hovering in the script of if this is a directorial choice, either way it’s fascinating because it might lead the audience to suspect that they are, in a sense, the master orchestraters of everything that happens…except that they’re only ever watching, observing.) Steuerman embodies this otherworldly quality to their performance; it reads a little like something out of a ghost story or “Hotel California” and yet feels real and alive. It’s a hypnotic conundrum, these two characters, but both Steuerman and Weaver are stellar in the roles, regardless of what the roles are trying to be or are meant to be perceived as.
Go for the experience. Go for the unique takeaway. Go to see the phenomenal puppetry in action. Go to see a squid. Or be a squid. Be one with the squid? Find your home. Find your comfort in your own skin. Go see Squidsbury.
Running Time: Approximately 2 hours with one intermission
Squidsbury plays through July 31, 2022 with Truepenny Projects at The Mercury Theatre— 1823 N. Charles Street in the Station North Arts District of Baltimore City, MD. Tickets are available for purchase in advance online.
To read the interview with playwright Chad Short and Director Tessara Morgan, click here.
