Night Falls on the Blue Planet at Theater Alliance (review)

The best plays are those that ask more questions than they answer: Night Falls on the Blue Planet is one of those plays.

Renee (Jeanne Dillion-Williams) might not have hit rock bottom yet, but she is close; she drinks too much, her relationships with her sisters are strained, and she lost custody of her 8-year-old son. But when her sister Holly (Natalie Cutcher) gifts her with an appointment for a deep tissue massage, Renee is placed on a path of inner self-discovery that may not be worth the price she pays.

Renee (Jeanne Dillion-Williams) might not have hit rock bottom yet, but she is close; she drinks too much, her relationships with her sisters are strained, and she lost custody of her 8-year-old son. But when her sister Holly (Natalie Cutcher) gifts her with an appointment for a deep tissue massage, Renee is placed on a path of inner self-discovery that may not be worth the price she pays.

The play is an oddly-moving, disarmingly funny exploration of the process of healing, the longterm effects of trauma, and the dangerous process of turning inward to break down the barriers we all create in order to function.

For Renee, her inner world is not a metaphor, but a physical place that she can see and feel. She enlists the people in her life to help her explore this world; her sisters, Holly and Annette (Kerri Ranbow), her massage therapist, Claudia (Amanda Haddock-Duchemin), and Daniel (Peter Finnegan), an artist and sometime yoga teacher. Renee’s process of self-discovery is bizarre, excessive, and all-encompassing. And, while Claudia and Daniel are along for the ride, it forces Holly and Annette to confront the different ways in which the three sisters have attempted to recover from an abusive childhood and how those attempts have affected their relationships, their choices, and their entire worlds.

Night Falls on the Blue Planet is a journey for the audience as well as the characters. It begins as if it might be one of the many plays in which people sit on couches and talk about things – their lives, their relationships, their pasts and their futures – but very quickly, things change. Renee experiences something that she cannot explain and that she spends the rest of the play exploring; in the same way, the audience spends the length of the play experiencing Renee’s journey and never feeling sure of whose opinion they should trust.

Perhaps the most satisfying thing about Night Falls on the Blue Planet is the complex, nuanced, and very real relationship between the three sisters. Although these three women between them cover the gamut of roles typically assigned to women (mother, sister, daughter, married, single, divorced, holding it together or falling apart), they are never limited to or defined by these roles. They are each on a journey of perpetual healing that, at times, binds them together and, at times, drives them apart.

The production, directed and choreographed by Rex Daugherty, for the most part, is equal to Akerley’s script. The true standouts of the cast are those with the least stage time. Peter Finnegan is hilariously charming as the earnest and perhaps overly-supportive Daniel. Although Claudia starts out slow as the clear-headed, if slightly new age, massage therapist, in later scenes Amanda Haddock-Duchemin really brings the character to life. Kerri Ranbow gives a fantastic performance as Renee’s older sister, Annette; she is uproariously funny from her first moments on the stage, but also handles the most emotionally intense scene of the play with a deft hand.

Night Falls on the Blue Planet is both laugh-out-loud funny, and deeply moving; during the performance I saw, the audience stopped the performance in the middle of a scene with applause for a funny moment, and, later, I heard someone audibly gasp at a moment of unexpected connection between Annette and Renee.

The ending left me uneasy; Akerley does not provide the audience with answers or a clear resolution, we are not, at the end of the evening, left with enough information to either condemn or congratulate Renee and those who help her on her journey. This uneasiness is ultimately what makes the play captivating and powerful; it is the questions that I was left with as the house lights came on that I will be thinking about in the days and weeks to come.

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Night Falls on the Blue Planet by Kathleen Akerley . Directed by Rex Daugtherty . Featuring  Jeanne Dillon-Williams, Natalie Cutcher, Kerri Ranbow , Amanda Haddock-Duchemin and Peter Finnegan . Scenic Design: Paige Hathaway . Costume Design: Kelsey Hunt . Lighting Design: John Burkland .  Design/Original Music: Eric Shimelonis . Props Design: Gadgetgrlz – Debra Crerie and Kay Rzasa . Assistant Director/Stage Manager: Eric Swartz . Produced by Theater Alliance . Reviewed by Jessica Pearson.