Carol Rosegg
Sandra
What is David Cale’s Sandra (Vineyard Theatre, to Dec 11) really about? It seems to be half soapy mystery, and half Shirley Valentine-ish vacation personal liberation tale. The story is high on melodrama (disappearance, hot sex, secret identities), and frustratingly detailed on some things and less so on others. However, it is beautifully told by Marjan Neshat, one of the stars of one of this critic’s favorite plays of the year, English. Here, as in that production, Neshat has an innate warmth and authority.
In Sandra, directed by Leigh Silverman, the title character is trying to find a gay best friend who has gone missing. Ethan was last seen in the Mexican gay vacation idyll of Puerto Vallarta, and so it is off there she goes, Neshat impersonating the people she meets along the way—who may or may not aid her in her search. Just as in Cale’s previous high-profile stage monologue, Harry Clarke performed by Billy Crudup, stage adornment (design is by Rachel Hauk) is minimal. Neshat, like Crudup, sits on a chair to address the audience, Neshat enclosed by two partitions with window cutouts. Thom Weaver’s lighting is clever and transporting when it comes to locales.