Arika Casey

Phoenix presents quirky quest for a dignified end

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By John Lyle Belden

As often happens, we find the way to feel comfortable about a serious topic is through comedy. You don’t get much more serious than imminent death.

Welcome to “Wasabia,” a fairly new play by Wendy Herlich presented by the Phoenix Theatre, directed by Brian Balcom.

In her senior community apartment, 73-year-old Vivian (Jan Lucas) receives a surprise visit from 19-year-old Carla (Hannah Luciani) who works with a hospice (helping people facing the end of life). During the brilliantly awkward comic encounter, we find that Vivian isn’t dying soon. However, with the onset of Alzheimers, her mind could go at any time.

The stars of this show, though, are Val and Di (Arika Casey and Jennifer Johansen), short for Valium and Digoxin, the principal components in a cocktail of drugs used in physician assisted death; in their words, “your last best friends.” These pharmaceutical personifications wear the best costumes (designed by Brittannie McKenna Travis) and enlighten us on their importance in ending one’s life with dignity. They play attendants at a Terminal for the final destination, as well as game show hosts of “The Suffering Contest.”

Andrew Martin plays Brody, nephew of the person Carla was supposed to work with before accidentally going to Vivian’s door. Goofy but well-meaning, he becomes critical to the plot.

Lucas plays Vivian like the role was written for her, giving a master class in playing a stubborn curmudgeon with wisdom and dry humor that plainly argues her perspective. Her sharp copy-editor brain is her most prized possession, slipping away, and she desperately seeks to personally complete her story’s final draft.

Luciani gives full dimension to a young woman with issues of her own, mainly from losing her own mother to cancer months earlier. She understands giving comfort in the face of death, but reacts as many of us would at hastening its arrival. In her own way, she is reaching a threshold in dealing with inner pain.

Casey also cameos as Wanda, a former hospice nurse. In addition, Jackie Mahon (assistant to stage manager Denielle Buckel Klein) appears in a Val & Di song-and-dance number.

Balcom, a widely accomplished director and no stranger to personal challenges, strikes an excellent balance between the humor and pathos, the former giving insight into aspects of the latter.  Herlich gave him excellent material derived from, in her words, “deep engagement of the topic” both in research and personal experience.

You likely have your own feelings on death with dignity laws and practices (an authorizing bill in the Indiana state legislature apparently failed). This play should be part of the important national conversation around it.

The title? Referred to obliquely, it’s apparently somewhere you don’t want to be trapped, though many of us are headed there. “Wasabia” runs through April 12 in the Basille black box stage of the Phoenix Theatre Cultural Centre, 705 N. Illinois St., downtown Indianapolis. Get tickets at phoenixtheatre.org.

A boy’s magical quest to save the seas

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By Wendy Carson and John Lyle Belden

Fonseca Theatre presents “Micah Meets a Mami Wata,” an adventure for children (of any age) by Prentiss Matthews III.

Micah (Phoenix Ray Warrior) is a very special boy. He recycles trash and shells from the seashore to make beautiful treasures, adores mermaids (and his special mermaid doll), and loves learning everything he can about the world around him. While his peers, as well as his dad (Josiah McCruiston), think he’s strange for this, his mother (Arika Casey), an ocean scientist, understands this uniqueness is just a part of his heritage.

After making a wish at his birthday party, which no one comes to, he encounters Emi (Makayla McElwain), a real Mami Wata (a mermaid in African lore). Finding himself under water but not drowning, he joins her in a spectacular adventure to heal the oceans. Along the way, they join Sticky, the comb jelly (Casey) and Brumbly, the horseshoe crab (McCruiston) and meet creatures and orishas (divine beings) played by Joshua Short, Empressnikia, and Ja’Taun Tiara.

This easy-to-follow children’s adventure not only takes on the unusual setting of the world’s oceans – from the reefs to the deep – but also tells its story from an Afro-Caribbean perspective. Micah is fascinated by the fact that the mami wata has the same dark skin tone as his. The plot also incorporates these cultures’ traditional use of cowrie shells as our heroes search for specific sacred ones.

In addition, we get a lesson on the dangers of pollution as a growing threat to us all. The production sets its example for environmental stewardship by making nearly all the props (by Jeanne Bowling) and puppets (designed by Beverly Roche and Lukas Felix Schooler) from discarded materials.

Fonseca producing director Jordan Flores Schwartz directs, with choreography by Casey.

Fun and enlightening – both in the mental sense and all the glowing “bioluminescence” effects – “Micah Meets a Mami Wata” has two more weekends, July 25-27 and Aug. 1-3, 7 p.m. Fridays, 4 p.m. Saturdays, and 2 p.m. Sundays, at 2508 W. Michigan St., Indianapolis. Tickets and info at fonsecatheatre.org.