Merit quickly 'Vanishing'

The intimate space of the Calhoun Cabaret provides an appropriate setting for a close inspection of a wealthy American family's intricate neuroses. The coziness of the venue gives the audience the impression of being more than a detached spectator of the events on stage. Unfortunately, you won't really want to be involved. Vanishing Acts is filled with fucked-up people about whom you can't really be bothered to care.

The play centers around Minna (Zoe Kazan, ES '05), the oldest daughter who acts as the play's—and her family's—anchor, keeping her highly psychotic family from spiraling out of control. In the first scene, Minna puts her little sister to bed, brushing Anya's hair the requisite, obsessive-compulsive one hundred times while telling her a bedtime story that vacillates from the fairy tale to the macabre. Minna's storytelling is frequently interrupted by the suspect needs of those around her. First it is the altercation between her grandfather and her mother, and then it is her fiancé, telling of another needy person who threatens suicide. The message is simple: everyone needs Minna, and she can't be everywhere at the same time to help everyone—and doesn't she deserve a little help, too?

YOO SUN CHEONG/YH Nice Pants.

Kazan holds up pretty well, supporting the entire play both plot-wise, through her character's Herculean efforts at maintaining a fragile homeostasis, and theatrically, by her own above-par acting. Her Minna is the one compelling character in the play, and even while the heavy-handedness of the script makes her into a Madonna figure, she remains likeable and somewhat three-dimensional.

The rest of the cast's performances run the gamut from realism to caricature. This unevenness is especially uncomfortable in such a small theater where the actors' smallest gestures can easily be noted. It's difficult to discern if the somewhat stylized over-acting was a device chosen by Vanishing's director, Valerie Work, DC '03, to underscore the play's allegorical undertones, or if the performances simply reflect the actors' best efforts. Work's direction, however, is at times both clear and effective. There are a couple of moments of pure chaos in the play in which Work aptly takes advantage of the small space to force the audience into empathy with the characters; the actors' over-exuberant physicality threatens your own personal space and pulls you into the out-of-control moment.

Comparably apt are the costumes. Julia Frederick's, JE '05, choices, while not daring or fabulous, choose the right details to enhance the play without drawing too much attention. Minna and Anya's self-absorbed and flighty mother (Jennifer Thompson, BR '04) is arrayed in multiple bangles and rings and necklaces so that her every move and gesture is punctuated by jangles and clinks. Ian Lowe's, DC '04, over-privileged idler sports Lacoste, khakis, and loafers.

A twist at the end of Vanishing Acts, while interesting, reveals the playwright's pretensions to philosophy and ends up feeling more like a clever cop-out than a heartfelt conclusion to a well-conceived narrative. At least it's only 80 minutes long.

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