Beaten
Written by Scott Woldman
Directed by Katherine Swan
at The Artistic Home, 1376 W. Grand (map)
thru Aug 11 | tickets: $28-$32 | more info
Check for half-price tickets
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A compelling, provocative multi-generational drama
The Artistic Home presents
Beaten
Review by Catey Sullivan
With Scott Woldman‘s Beaten, the Artistic Home puts a spotlight on three exceptional actresses with a troubled drama that explores a cycle of domestic violence seemingly handed down through three generations. Woldman’s narrative isn’t without a few gaping plot holes, but his dialog contains passages that will remain lodged in your brain long after the final blackout. Moreover, in director Katherine Swan‘s capable hands, Beaten is a largely compelling and often provocative.
Infringing on this trio of long-simmering anger and frustration is Greg (Conor McCahill), a bespectacled nerd who worships the ground that Chloe walks on and who has no problem lying if that’s what it takes to successfully entangle his beloved into a relationship with him. As the direct-address narrator of Beaten, the gentle, slavishly devoted Greg serves as a sort of one-man Greek chorus, commenting on the events as they unfold and offering a confessional of his own tangled emotions as the drama winds on. He may be only in his 20s, but that’s "old enough to realize you’re not the person who you wanted to be," he ponders at one point. Nobody in Beaten is who they wanted to be, and it’s that fact that propels Woldman’s drama toward the dispiriting realm of tragedy.
One of the playwright’s strengths lies in his ability to intersperse such unarguably dark truths with moments of laugh-out-loud humor, much of that humor coming from Scambiaterra’s Eileen. The light and the dark is apparent in the first scene: An expert in the lost art of crafting a bong from a potato (she’s refusing treatment for her cancer, preferring to self-medicate with copious amounts of marijuana and booze), Eileen is also the genesis of this family’s thicket of woes, the survivor of an abusive marriage that left her daughter in a seemingly permanent state of rage and frustration.
 
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As grandmother, mother and daughter struggle to come to terms with the brutality that has warped their lives, Eileen puts their problems into a dire perspective.
"Once something like this gets into a family, it doesn’t go away," she says with blunt, matter-of-fact candor.
As far as the Sinclairs are concerned, Eileen’s assertion rings with truth. Still, Woldman’s etching of the fine line between truth and perception shows that not everything is as cut and dried as it might appear. Jason might not be the monster he ‘s initially painted as and Greg is not be the harmless dweeb that he seems. It’s in drawing these shades of gray into a seemingly black-and-white situation that Woldman’s plot trips up. In particular, the fateful night when Jason put Chloe into the hospital doesn’t add up. His reaction to a crushing revelation doesn’t make sense; without divulging key plot points, we’ll just say that it’s not believable that Jason wouldn’t have followed up his physical reaction with at least a partial explanation – however halting or tearful – as to why he reacted as he did. And when we learn the police became involved in the incident, it’s just about inconceivable that – under questioning – Jason wouldn’t have revealed a truth that would have given Chloe a different perspective on the situation and a much clearer view of the souls of the men in her life.
That said, Beaten zips along fueled by the understated powerhouse turn by Scambiaterra as a matriarch of woe. It also boasts some disturbingly realistic fight choreography by John Mossman. And thanks to scenic designer John Wilson, Beaten plays out in a perfect environment for a kitchen-sink drama.
Rating: ★★½
Beaten continues through August 11th at The Artistic Home, 1376 W. Grand (map), with performances Thursdays at 7:30pm, Fridays and Saturdays 8pm, Sundays 5pm. Tickets are $28-$32, and are available by phone (866-811-4111) or online through OvationTix.com (check for half-price tickets at Goldstar.com). More information at TheArtisticHome.org. (Running time: 2 hours, includes an intermission)
Photos by Anthony Aicardi
artists
cast
Kathy Scambiatterra (Eileen), Kristin Collins (Madelynne), Kathryn Acosta (Chloe), Conor McCahill (Greg), Joe Wiens (Jason).
behind the scenes
Katherine Swan (director), John Wilson (set design), Lynn Sandberg (costume design), Garvin Jellison (lighting design), Chad Swan (sound design), Judith Laughlin (prop design, set dressing), Caitlin O’Rourke (stage manager), John Mossman (fight choreography), Helen Young (asst. director), Anthony Aicardi (photos).
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