Early Halloween at MTC

In a brilliant stroke of showmanship, Marin Theatre Company opened its new play “Bellwether” under a full moon during Halloween season. Steve Yockey’s anticipated “spine-tingling fairy tale for adults,” is having its world premiere at MTC, where it’s been under construction since Yockey was playwright in residence there in 2009. In program notes, he is described as “a storyteller . . . writing retellings of mythical stories set against the backdrop of today’s morally complicated culture.” Both Marin Theatre Company and the play’s director, Ryan Rilette, have launched “Bellwether” with a full complement of stagecraft.

It begins with a handsome, two-level set (Giulio Cesare Perrone’s design) where a child’s jumbled bed appears to teeter precariously near the edge of the upper level. The home itself seems a standardized pleasant place, contrasted with an oddly agitated soundtrack. (Chris Houston.) The neighbors who stroll onstage, greeting one another and members of the audience, speak in positive terms about their gated community, security systems, street lights and soccer teams, summarizing, “Bad things just don’t happen here.” But then they do. Amy, the little girl who occupies the bed upstairs, vanishes, and the only clues are some drawings she did of a man in a dark coat.

Media reps descend on Bellwether, more intrusive and numerous than the police.
Neighbors begin to avoid the parents, to speculate. After four days, focus of the investigation turns to the family. And what is causing that booming noise? How can that be only “a suburban thing?”

This playwright is indeed an accomplished storyteller. However, by the second act, some prototypes begin to take shape. Here are remnants of the Pied Piper, of Hansel and Gretel. Here are memories of “Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep” and an ancient invocation against “things that go bump in the night.” Here’s a reminder of “Our Town” as if written by Stephen King and a clown that could induce coulrophobia in Barnum and Bailey. In the spirit of maintaining suspense, two fine actors – Kathryn Zdan and Jessica Lynn Carroll – must go without further description for now.

Rounding out the cast, Arwen Anderson plays Jackie Draft, besieged and sometimes besotted mother of the missing Amy, with Gabriel Marin as the child’s hapless Father, Alan. Rachel Harker is their neighbor Maddy, newly-divorced and not entirely accepted. The neighbors, detectives and reporters who perform in double roles are all Actor’s Equity professionals: Liz Sklar, Marissa Keltie, Mollie Stickney, Danny Wolohan and Patrick Jones.

York Kennedy’s eerie lighting and Fumiko Bielefeldt’s costumes add to the spooky mood. MTC has done everything right to ensure creepiness. All that’s left is for the audience to sit around a campfire in a dark wood. But once we start asking ourselves, “What kind of town would name itself ‘entity that seems to presage future happenings?’” or, “Is Draft a real surname?” or begin to recognize ghosts of other ghost stories, then our spine begins to tickle more than tingle.

Steve Yockey’s “Bellwether” will be performed through October 30, Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 8:00 pm, Wednesdays at 7:30 and Sundays at 7:00.
Matinees are Thursday, Oct. 20 at 1:00 pm, Saturday, Oct. 29 and every Sunday at 2:00 pm. Ticket prices range from $15 (one hour before the show) to $55. For details or reservations, please see www.marintheatre.org or call the box office, 388-5208.