Curcio turns personal pain into good theater

Last December, Ernie Curcio's wife committed suicide, and the young local actor and director has done a smart thing: He's written a play about it. I wish more people understood the therapeutic value of writing, which can help us retain control when we feel threatened by arbitrary events.

The question here though, at the Katherine Gianaclis Park, is, are the one-acts "Unfinished" and "Sundrops" mere therapy for their author, or is this good theater?

I'd say a lot of both.

"Unfinished," gives us an eccentric, brilliant art professor (the wonderfully three-dimensional Erik Amblad) trying to analyze an abstract design. Curcio and director Mundana Ess-Haghabadi make the monologue not a mere speech, but an exciting dramatic journey. The prof is trying to figure things out, and is often taken aback by how little he really knows. As the play progresses, we learn more about the strange relationship between the prof and the painting.

Curcio's set-up for "Sundrops" is clever: A young woman (Erica Griffin) coping with her lover's suicide is visited by three spiritual beings (including her late partner, played by Ryan Remark).

Curcio again does an admirable job of theatricalizing a personal situation, but lays on the sentiment a bit too thick. It might have been more honest (and dramatically exciting) for the ending to not be so reassuring.

Both Curcio and director Daneal Doerr deserve much credit for helping Griffin deliver one of the most moving performances of the season. The role easily could have been made into a whiner, but Griffin finds multiple levels for her nonstop grief. She moves with the grace of a trained dancer. She and Remark have an extraordinary final scene in which they "reconcile." The two make us believe they are a couple, that they have a history, and that they have the unique ability to fill each other's lives with hurt and joy.

The tiny indoor theater for "Unfinished" is full of knick-knacks and details that make for great environmental theater. And, in the outdoor "Sundrops," unusual care has been taken with lights, sound and set.

With the passage of time, Curcio will, I suspect, know how to weed out the scripts' unnecessary sentiment. He's already created an intriguing experience that feels born of pain. The subtext says, "Intimate relationships are impossible. And they're worth spending a lifetime to attain."

Anthony Del Valle can be reached at DelValle@aol.com. You can write him c/o Las Vegas Review-Journal, P.O. Box 70, Las Vegas, NV 89125.