A man, a woman, and a room: this is Ariel Dorfman’s Purgatorio. It is a chilling tale of love, loss, and the human soul. At once specific—it is the story of Jason and Medea, the stuff of Greek myth—and universal—it is the story of a nameless woman, and a nameless man—Purgatorio might at first appear to be alienating, and perhaps even gimmicky, but by the end of the journey this man and this woman take, all gimmick has fallen away into deep emotion.

UA’s production of Purgatorio (directed by Jimmy Kontos) is extremely physical. The play opens with a mimed brawl between the man and the woman: precise and stylistic, this fight, performed in almost no light, sets the tone of the emotional battle that is to come. The stage (designed by Jameson Sanford) suggests this battle. Pre-performance, it is cordoned off with posts and chains and resembles a boxing ring. In this ring, a bare white slab of a stage, rests only a bed, a table, and a chair. This is purgatory: a hospital room, sterile and bare, in which a doctor comes and, through a process that is reminiscent of a psychoanalytic session, extracts repentance from the dead.

The lighting (designed by Mike Morin) comes from all sides of the stage, casting competing shadows upon the white slab, constant reminders of the demons that will haunt the man and the woman during their tenure in purgatory. A single light hangs down mid-stage, watching the man and the woman like the eye of God as they contemplate their sins.

And the man (Stephen Brunson) and the woman (Amy Handra) certainly contemplate their sins. They alternately play analyst and analysand, roles separated only by the donning of a white lab coat. Handra delivers a stunning performance, thrusting herself about the stage, harnessing the raw power of a woman so driven that she kills her own sons to seek vengeance on her unfaithful husband. Brunson, too, grabs onto the mythical ethos of Jason the Argonaut. Though he starts slowly, he eventually builds to match Handra’s presence, both emotionally and physically. Together, Brunson and Handra, Jason and Medea, the man and the woman, the characters and the audience (who are implicated in the purgatorial process—they are the cameras, the unnamed “they” who watch on from above, the God figures who judge the man and the woman and decide when their sentence has been fulfilled) build to a frightening crescendo, a moment in which the lights dim and in the darkness a man and a woman—embittered, mourning, defeated—embrace.

This production of Purgatorio displays a unity of vision, a convergence of minds from all aspects of the performance, that is striking and touching, tender and somehow harsh. In her dramaturgical notes, Tiffany Towns asks: “Can love destroy you? Can love destroy those around you?” Purgatorio’s answer is a resounding: “Yes.”

~jgamble

UA’s Production of Purgatorio runs September 26-October 2. For more information, please visit http://theatre.ua.edu/productions/2010-2011-season/.