What // Washed Ashore // Away

A new play by Benjamin Benne

Or: The Outgoing/Incoming Tide

It’s like taking a walk on the beach. A careful placing of feet on wet sand and sharp shell, aware all the time of something vast and terrible and unknown lapping right beside you. It’s a walk that spans a year, over a little scrappy beach far from the city, in the company of Chris (Elaine Diner) and Cat (Jackie Franks), two twin sisters, the one full of sense, the other of sensibility, each with a keen eye for fishing unexpected items from across seventy five years out of the sands.

In truth, I can’t imagine Benjamin Benne’s script being staged; or staged well, rather. But what else is a reading for than to liberate a script from the constraints of reality and cast it up as story, purely? His language is rhythmic and winding, his set takes us across years and into impossible places: the life inside of a conch shell, for example, or the darkness enfolded in a leather-bound journal waiting to be filled with memories. Its plot is a little eddying, washing back to the same ocean tableaux, or indulging in its frequent breathing exercises; stretches that might be refreshingly relaxed to some and torpid to others. The language is equally ponderous, though occasionally crackling, especially when Diner tosses out a dry cut, done with a perfect ‘couldn’t-care-less’-ness.

There are hard things here, sharp things, and like Cat’s daughter Jamie (Janet Lo) we often find ourselves blindsided by tears, fears, and recriminations. But though Benne does little to guide our feet past painful stumbling blocks, we still find our way to the end of the beach, with our pockets full of overlooked treasures.