Out of the bubble

The world can be a scary, constantly changing place. Coming to a college as large and urban as Portland State can be culture shock for even the most sophisticated student. It can be even harder to adapt for those who have grown up with very traditional or provincial values. The characters in the PSU Theater Department’s production of John Patrick Shanley’s Savage in Limbo also struggle with this need to change how they think and live.

In the play, five former Catholic high school classmates from the Bronx meet in a bar. They are all now 32. Their characters include: a virgin, an alcoholic, a player who wants to date “ugly girls,” his girlfriend who has already had two children of her own, and the bartender. The play is set in 1980, but all the characters are stuck in the old-fashioned Irish and Italian immigrant values of the ’50s or even the ’20s.

Denise Savage, the title character, is still a virgin and sick of it. She over-thinks everything and has let her fears hold her back all her life. Now she wants to change but doesn’t know how. Linda Rotunda has had plenty of lovers, if you could call them that, and two children who she has given away. Her some-time boyfriend Tony Aronica is a player who is beginning to desire more substance, but doesn’t even know what that is. April White was going to be a nun, but now she lives at the bar instead of the convent. Murk tends bar and tries to keep April sane long enough for her to return his love.

Celia Adams, who has never performed on stage before, plays Savage. A psychology major, she took an acting class that was designed for non-theater majors, then auditioned for this play. Director Georgette Dashielle says she immediately knew the unusually tall newcomer was right for the role. And she is, truly embodying the frustration and self-protectiveness of the character.

Nico Izambard and Syke Champagne play Tony and Linda, bringing realism to both their characters and the relationship between them. Izambard’s French accent is tempered to make it more suitable to an “Italian stallion,” which he does a good job personifying. Champagne is both motherly and world-wise as Linda. April is played by Carrie Emerich, a newcomer from Bend who played a drunk so convincingly that I would never have known she was sober if I hadn’t seen her after the show. Darron Delana is appropriately gritty as the bartender, Murk, yet really softens when his character’s affection towards April comes out.

These strong performances come together with graduate student Georgette Dashielle’s passionate and experienced direction to bring this challenging play to life. One of several themes that emerge is that there is an “animal inside each of us,” just waiting to get out. Cultural or religious traditions hold us back, making it so we don’t know any other way to live. The characters live in a bubble: unable to continue living this way, but ill-equipped to face the outside world. The conflicts within and between the characters make for many funny moments as well.

Even at PSU, it’s easy to stay in our bubbles. Commuter students can easily keep school separate from the rest of their lives. Even those that live on-campus often stay locked in their rooms and make few friends outside of those they already knew before college or that they’ve met randomly at parties or in classes. Meanwhile, a thriving metropolis full of interesting people and events surrounds us. To take advantage of all these opportunities, we will have to change the way we approach life, even if we don’t know how. Getting out and seeing a play like this is a good start, and might be a real inspiration. And, at $3 a student, it’s hard not to find a reason to see it.

Savage in Limbo plays at the Lincoln Hall Studio Theater, Jan. 17 to 19, at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $3 at the door for students, and $5 for everyone else.