Director finds soft edges in Little Theatre’s ‘Extremities’

Jamie Carvelli has one tough role in "Extremities."

Through much of William Mastrosimone's 1980 drama, now at Las Vegas Little Theatre's Fischer Black Box, the young actress plays a character (Marjorie) who is either being tortured or is torturing someone else. What's surprising is not how alternately vulnerable and forceful Carvelli can be, but how subtle. We're easily able to follow the gradual emotional changes Marjorie undergoes because Carvelli has a face that seems to register everything. She doesn't allow herself to get by on histrionics.

Director Daneal Doerr's production is rich in this kind of expertise. A woman's home is invaded by a rapist, Raul (Christos Geo Nikols). Just when Marjorie is about to become his latest victim, she subdues him. When her two roommates come home (played by Sarah Spraker and Natascha Nina Negro), they have to decide what do with the guy, who now lies tied up in the empty fireplace. Marjorie fears she will not get justice because no actual rape took place. And the frightened woman has gone way overboard in her physical retaliation. As one roommate notes, "Who the animal is here is not exactly clear to me."

The show's pleasure begins as soon as we enter the theater. T.J. Larsen has designed a living room set (with a kitchen and the outdoors peeking through) that gives the tiny playing space great depth. It's a beautifully detailed and well-angled creation (and well-lighted by Deven Ceriotti).

When Nikols as Raul enters the home, we sense a genuine threat. Nikols has a domineering presence that gives off sparks of danger. When the lengthy combat takes place between Marjorie and Raul, we're taken aback at the high degree of realism fight choreographer Sean Critchfield and the director have achieved. Such believable violence is unusual on so small a stage.

Doerr is again on target in the second act, in which even the roommates start to question how much Marjorie may have been responsible for what happened.

This is a difficult script -- not just physically demanding, but overwrought and overstated -- and yet Doerr has been able to bring out a lot of the softer edges.

Best of all, she has in Carvelli an actress more interested in being a human being onstage than a drama queen.

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.