By Gray Thomas
Pygmalion Theatre Company’s Red Bike at the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center in Salt Lake City is an absorbing 75-minute monologue told through three actors. Most of the time, the actors are playing the role of an 11-year old child who is riding their bike around a small town, but occasionally switching into the role of various people who interact with the child. The story follows the child through a town that is experiencing change. The narrative rolls and runs through various stories about small towns shrinking while other towns grow, nostalgia, transitions, identity, and what the future might hold for a kid with a big imagination in a small town. A great portion of the monologue occurs as the kid is going down a hill too fast and unable to break. There is fear mingled with exhilaration, much like the act of growing up itself. The play ranges from moments of hilarity to deeper philosophical musings unique to a kid pedaling a bike around town.
The method of storytelling is unique and innovative, as the monologue is told through three various actors: Sydney Shoell, Andrea Kile Peterson and Jesse Nepivoda. While each actor takes turns in reciting various parts of the story, the use of the trio allows them to morph into other characters who interact with the child as well as emphasizing the multiple voices of imagination, enthusiasm, and anxiety. The actors vary in age and gender, allowing the “kid” to be free of these constraints, and tell the story with a kind of unrestrained innocence.
The set by Thomas George is fairly minimal, with various stacking boxes that are rearranged throughout different parts of the play. The actors often use the boxes to beat a rhythm that not only mimicks the pedaling of the actor but also the encompassing inevitability of time that creeps up on the kid. And of course, there is the red bike, held stationary, yet upon which the actors move the story along. The bike acts as a vehicle for the story, allowing the characters to move throughout the town and tell the stories about the town. The set is punctuated by suspended wires that give the appearance of telephone wires from which shoes and various bike parts dangle. A large white screen serves as the background, upon which a colorful gradient (lighting by Molly Tiede) from orange to blue is projected, giving the sense of a sunset or a sunrise, beckoning the audience to wonder whether or not the sun is setting or rising on this town.
Director Fran Pruyn has put together a production that is incredibly tight and solid. Through the eyes and imagination of a kid on a bike, the audience receives a fresh perspective of America. The joy, whimsy and anxiety of the kid is portrayed perfectly by the cast. The imagination of the audience is also queued, adding a depth to the experience. If you are seeking a play that is innovative, minimal, with a compelling cast, unique and innovative storytelling, this is your play.
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Pygmalion Theatre Company presents Red Bike by Caridad Svich
Rose Wagner Center for Performing Arts, 138 Broadway, Salt Lake City, UT 84101
April 20 – May 5 7:30 PM, Matinees: 4/22, 4/29, 5/5 2:00 PM
Tickets: $20
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Red Bike Facebook Event
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