Review: Immersive ‘Rorschach’ at Skylight Theatre Company
“The play actually unfolds in front of you like an inkblot,” playwright Kelly Younger told LA Theatrix about "Rorschach" at Skylight Theatre Company. “That was always the dream, but seeing it actually happen takes my breath away. And when I hear that occasional gasp from the audience, I know it’s taking their breath away, too.”
Who knew inkblots could say so much? Hermann Rorschach, for one, who in the early 1920s proposed having psychology patients describe what they could see within abstract, symmetrical images made from ink folded in paper.
Playwright Kelly Younger’s “Rorschach” — having its world premiere at the Skylight Theatre Company through Nov. 22 — not only shines a light on the young scientist’s efforts promoting inkblots but explores inky perceptions within relationships both past and present.
Like Tom Stoppard’s time-bending “Arcadia”— but told in an efficient and humorous sitcom style — the play travels between 1922 Zurich and present-day Los Angeles, sometimes bringing characters from the two time periods together in the same room.
“I love the theatricality of having two different time periods exist on stage at the same time, or having scenes separated by a hundred years take place in exactly the same space,” Younger said. “That’s something theater can do so beautifully and so effortlessly.”
While “Rorschach” is inherently interesting that way, director Cameron Watson’s staging adds an immersive dimension that elevates the experience. Set design by Tesshi Nakagawa echoes the structure of an inkblot with two platforms linked by stairs, separating the action in the two time periods while suggesting their symmetry.
And mesmerizing swirling-inkblot projections by Nicholas Santiago — with warm lighting by Jared A. Sayeg and transportive sound design by Jeff Gardner — further draw us into the dual world of the play.
37-year-old Hermann Rorschach (Mitch Ross) in Zurich is concerned about how his friend and colleague Emil Oberholzer (Paul Culos) is handling getting a patient to take the inkblot test to prove its efficacy, Rorschach insightfully deciphering that person’s innermost personality even before knowing who it is.
Meanwhile, in the present day, psychometric scientist Justin (a likeable Elijah McNally) is presenting his PhD analysis of Rorschach’s results to an audience of one — aspiring museum labeler Aimee (Carolina Rodriguez) — but struggling to work out who took that test to prove Hermann’s analysis was really accurate.
Also meanwhile, Aimee’s roommate Dana (Tessa Claire Hersh) is quietly upset that her actress girlfriend Olive (Linzi Fenix) — who is, in an extreme coincidence, Justin’s sister — is leaving for Bulgaria after landing a speaking part in a film there.
As the relationships play out — friends, lovers, roommates, siblings — unfolding back and forth across time and space, comic humor mitigates angst and the projected inkblots whirl, at one point interpreted mundanely by a modern character and poetically by Rorschach himself.
“I never wanted it to be a biography or a documentary,” Younger said. “For me, it’s a love story. It’s a play about love in all its different shapes and forms and images, and about the ways we try to reach one another across whatever separates us, whether that’s a hundred years, a few feet of stage, or the space between an actor and an audience.”
Despite (or perhaps because of) its basis in a psychological test, “Rorschach” is really about people and how they perceive or don’t perceive others right in front of them. Are other people inkblots? Are they simply projections of what we want them to be?
The play illustrates that idea through its characters like a deconstructed episode of “Friends,” its six-member cast fluidly choreographed by Watson through the various scenes, including at one point Dana and Emil — the two forlorn characters in different eras and places — writing at the same desk across from each other, seeming to feel each other’s presence.
“It makes my heart fill up, watching people reach out across time,” Younger said. “Because in some ways, that’s what theater itself does. You have living actors in the present embodying people from the past, reaching out toward an audience who is right there with them. Past and present are always sharing the room.”
Of the talented ensemble, Culos stands out in portraying Emil with sensitive depth. And Fenix nails her role as the vivacious if somewhat ditzy Olive, an amusingly stereotypical L.A. actress.
All the actors project, inflect and time their comedic lines well, though given the number of character arcs the play juggles in 90 minutes, it sometimes relies on telling more than showing. We know Justin is sad his father is dead, and we see him cry, but don’t know why — what the loss means to him. And while Dana is a busy film-studio wardrobe manager, we don’t really see her working hard or designing anything, making her job feel less real than the others and flattening some of her scenes.
Younger’s writing shines brightest in the dialogue, especially unexpected moments of witty repartee (“Did you say hence?”) among the modern characters, and in weaving the play’s disparate strands to a satisfying conclusion. Though he wrote “Rorschach” 17 years ago, it feels fresh in this production, a collaboration between playwright and director in bringing it to magical life for the first time.
“A great director actually finds that ‘beating heart’ and creates something alive, something that has never existed before and can only exist in that theater, with those actors and that audience, for that particular moment,” Younger said. “And then it’s gone. That’s one of the things I love most about theater.”
“Rorschach” continues through Nov. 22 at the Skylight Theatre Company, 1816 ½ N. Vermont Ave., Los Feliz, with shows Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m. Ticket are $45 or $30 for seniors and students. For tickets and information, visit SkylightTheatre.org. Run time is 90 minutes with no intermission.
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