Lauren Kiesling and Steve Oliverez in Taking Flight Theater's production of "Earth and Sky." Photo by Allrand Photography.
Douglas Post’s murder mystery Earth and Sky, first written and performed over two decades ago, has been newly revived by the Taking Flight Theatre Company at the Waddell Theatre on the Loudoun County campus of Northern Virginia Community College. Melding the hard-boiled aesthetics of film noir with the criminal underworld of modern Chicago, the play exhibits enough twisted plotting and edgy characterizations to satisfy the devotee of classic crime fiction and television police drama.
Capably and stylishly performed, the play moves along at a swift pace, with retrospective and prospective scenes piecing together the backstory of a gruesome murder. Yet despite its attractive production values, the play is a pastiche of genre-related stereotypes and ultimately fails to take the viewer into the true heart of darkness of the modern criminal underworld; nor does it attempt to expand the boundaries of its noir origins à la David Mamet, Chicago’s better-known theatrical native son.
Poet and librarian Sara McKeon (Lauren Kiesling) has been enjoying a budding romance with restaurant owner David Ames (Steve Oliverez), when she is notified that his body has been found in a dumpster with a bullet wound in the back of the head. Shocked by such an unexpected turn of events, Sara seeks out a pair of police detectives, H. E. Weber (Jim Johnson) and Al Kersnowski (Michael Richardson), who inform her that her new boyfriend was actually up to his ears in criminal activities.
Jim Johnson and Mike Richardson sort through clues. Photo by Allrand Photography.
Determined to get to the bottom of such a discrepancy between the boyfriend she thought she knew and his tarnished image presented by law enforcement, Sara launches a inquest that soon leads her to encounters with the bartender (Billy Hart, played by Jude Rodriguez) at a bar near where her boyfriend was killed, and eventually to two hit men, Carl Eisenstadt (David Segal) and Julius Gatz (Mario Font), whom she indignantly confronts while seeking vindication for her defunct lover. Peeling back successive layers of an onion-like plot, we finally discover the true criminal just in time for a set of handcuffs to snap around his wrists and for Sara’s selfless endeavors to pay off.
The Taking Flight Theatre Company does a commendable job in bringing Post’s derivative drama to life. Lauren Kiesling captures the frantic, driven mood of the aggrieved Sara, while Ruth Neaveill in the role of Sara’s librarian friend Joyce Lazlo conveys the smarmy wisdom of the older confidante. Jim Johnson projects the jaded cynicism of the seasoned detective H. E. Weber, and Michael Richardson exudes boyish bravado as Weber’s younger associate Al Kersnowski.
The play’s two professional criminals, Carl Eisenstadt and Julius Gatz, played by David Segal and Mario Font, are authentically sinister villains and provide the only spine-chilling possibilities in the play. Sara’s boyfriend David, as played by Steve Oliverez, on the other hand, is so bland a personality that he is neither believable as a potential criminal, nor unique enough to inspire Sara’s fierce loyalty to his memory. The set is minimalist, with three cubes making do for desks, chairs, and bar counters, while a three-paneled vertical backdrop covered with a random roster of words provides an inadvertently understated background.
Earth and Sky plays through February 25 at the Waddell Theatre.
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