Review: Gambit (Artemisia Theatre)

  
  
Gambit 

Written by Ross Tedford Kendall
Directed by Julie Proudfoot
at Signal Theatre 1802 W. Berenice (map)
thru Nov 24  |  tickets: $25   |  more info
  
Check for half-price tickets 
  
  
   Read review
  

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Checkmate, indeed….

Artemisia Theatre presents

Gambit

Review by Patrick Dyer

How does one make a chess game exciting? It doesn’t necessarily scream “theater”: two people eyeing at a board with very little talking and just moving a tiny wooden knight or bishop to a square after long interludes of silence. Because of that, there has to be more at stake between the players than simply who the winner of the game will be. Ross Tedford Kendall takes this classic game as a framing device for his new drama, Gambit.

Gambit is the story of a young law student named Clementine (Miriam Reuter) who is on threat of expulsion and even criminal charges for assaulting a professor in class after a heated debate. Her aunt Jill (Suzanne Petri), an experienced prosecutor, comes to her defense. But Clementine’s big personality and attitude make it difficult for Jill to negotiate with her, so they meet in the Dean’s office to meet a compromise. There, she has the doors locked as the university’s Board of Trustees wait outside for Clementine to face the consequences of her actions. Clementine, however, challenges her aunt to a game of chess: if Clementine wins, she can walk out with no punishment; if she loses, she’ll give herself up. What results is a battle of wits between these two ladies as they try to decipher each other’s faults (and in the process bring up secrets from their past).

The overall framing of a chess game could make for an interesting play, but Kendall hasn’t fleshed it out enough with Gambit. For a play based around a game that’s supposed to encourage logic, this is a surprisingly illogical play. Why does Jill (an experienced attorney) have herself and Clementine locked in the Dean’s office instead of just bringing in security? Are the Board of Trustees just waiting politely outside during this whole “battle of wits”? And why wasn’t Clementine immediately arrested after assaulting a professor in class? Matters aren’t helped with a repetitive script that bogs itself down in too much backstory and, quite frankly, unsympathetic characters. Kendall gives us plenty of backstory for Jill’s reason to defend Clementine and Clementine’s violent behavior, but it slows down the action and is never really allowed to register with us as the audience. Backstories in plays work best when they have strong motivation behind them and are detailed enough to be engaging, but Kendall’s backstories for these two women are either too bland or too muddled. They also aren’t good enough justifications for how mean-spirited they both are to each other, resulting in an unnecessarily brutal fight scene by the play’s end.

Even with strong actors, unsympathetic characters without proper framing are hard to make convincing. Petri has fun with her role as Jill, and gets a few good laughs, but as comfortable as she looks onstage she still can’t make Jill an entirely fleshed-out character. Reuter is appropriately brash and egotistical as Clementine, but struggles to make her sympathetic or even very human. Her character is just so stubborn and mean-spirited that one is never swayed to her side of this “debate.” Between the two women, I lean more towards Jill. But even then, it’s only a “lesser of two evils” scenario. Director Julie Proudfoot keeps the energy between the actors constant for eighty minutes, but the script’s repetition becomes numbing after a while.

By the end, we’re not sure if either Jill or Clementine has grown as characters or even if they’re supposed to. Did they both reconcile their past successfully? Will Clementine learn not to be so violent and brash? Will Jill stop defending Clementine every time she makes a horrible mistake like assaulting a professor? Who even won this “game”? Who knows and who cares. Mean-spiritedness doesn’t equal depth, and muddled backstories don’t always generate sympathy.

Rating: ★★

Gambit continues through November 24th at Signal Ensemble Theatre, 1802 W. Berenice (map), with performances Thursdays-Saturdays at 8pm, Sundays 3pm.  Tickets are $25, and are available by phone (872-228-9566) or online through their website (check for half-price tickets at Goldstar.com). More information at ArtemisiaTheatre.org.  (Running time: 1 hour 20 minutes, NO intermission)

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artists

cast

Miriam Reuter (Clementine), Suzanne Petri (Jill)

behind the scenes

Julie Proudfoot (director), Beth Zupec (stage manager), Ann Davis (set design, props, technical director), Zak Malisch (lighting design), Raquel Adorno (costume design), Jessica Paz (sound design), Aaron Pagel (fight choreography)

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