Molly Bellner

Tragic depth in half-full bathtubs

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By John Lyle Belden

Fascination with unusual murder has been a pop culture staple for centuries, especially if such stories are true. Through the last century or so, the arts have explored the minds of monstrous killers, as well as the clever persons deducing who did the deed. Now, stories will often focus on those unable to speak for themselves.

In “The Drowning Girls,” at Main Street Productions in Westfield, we hear them loud and clear.

Based on events in England, this unique drama by Canadians Daniela Vlaskalic, Beth Graham, and Charlie Tomlinson, directed here by Molly Bellner, features just three clawfoot bathtubs on the stage, actually containing water. From these emerge the three known murder victims of George Joseph Smith. They speak to each other – and to us – relating how they were each taken in by the lifelong thief, swindler and bigamist, and how he was finally brought to justice for their killings in 1915.

Bessie Mundy (Jo Bennett) went with husband “Henry Williams” to a seaside resort; Alice Burnham Smith (Monya Wolf) was in a Blackpool boardinghouse with husband “George Rose Smith;” Margaret Elizabeth Lloyd (Sarah Eberhardt) resided with husband “John Lloyd” in Highgate, London. All three died of “misadventure” – perhaps a seizure? – in the bath. The women’s savings, and life insurance, naturally went to the husband.

As the three actors examine and reenact the events, they take on other roles as needed, including taking turns as smooth-talking Mr. Smith(Williams/Lloyd). Society and expectations on women play a part, but also the manipulation familiar to stories of psychopathy, abuse, and controlling behavior.

The pacing and style of the material is familiar to those who enjoy true-crime documentaries and podcasts, which aids the sense that this is nonfiction. Having reviewed the steps that led to their watery demise, Bessie, Alice and Margaret then perform as the various people who finally brought Smith to the gallows – including the attentive Burnham parents, their suspicions deepened by strange coincidence, as well as detectives who broke new ground in forensics and investigation.

Bennett, Wolf, and Eberhardt, each outstanding, don’t put on period English accents as their plight is timeless, as likely to happen in 1914 or 2014 (or ’26). They fully take their characters’ opportunity to express their frustration and give their example as warning, complete with charming moments and gallows humor, yet never straying from the circumstances of their fate.

The simple set (complete with waterproofing, we surmise) is by Ed Trout. Beautiful white gowns by costumer Cathie Morgan help complete the scene. Stage manager is Marissa Hassie, with backstage assistant Baylor Bates.

Though it only took a few inches of water to kill them, “The Drowning Girls” go deep. Performances are Thursday through Sunday, March 26-29, at the Basile Westfield Playhouse, 220 N. Union St. (Downtown construction slows traffic, but the site is accessible.) Get tickets from Main Street Productions at westfieldplayhouse.org.

‘Laramie Project’ at IF Theatre

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By John Lyle Belden

Twenty-seven years, this October.

That is how long it has been since the murder of Matthew Shepard. About five years longer than he was alive.

The memory of that life, how the gay college student was brutally beaten and left to die tied to a wooden fence, and how the aftermath changed a town and affected the world were captured by the Tectonic Theatre Project, led by Moises Kaufman, in “The Laramie Project.” This play – more like a staged documentary derived from actual interviews and journal entries – is presented by Picture It! Players at IF Theatre through Sunday (May 18).

Directed by Molly Bellner, the cast of Austin Uebelhor, Thom Turner, Adam Phillips, Ryan Moskalick, Amelia Tryon, Cass Knowling, Susan Yeaw, Mary-Margaret Sweeney, and James LaMonte portray both the project interviewers and the people of Laramie, Wyoming, whom they talked to.

Among various roles, Uebelhor plays Kaufman and a priest who organized the candlelight vigil while Shepard was in a coma; Turner is the overwhelmed police sergeant tasked with the case as well as the E.R. doctor who initially treated Shepard, and, coincidentally, one of his attackers; Phillips plays the bartender who was among the last to see Shepard before his attack, as well as a minister preaching against homosexuality; Moskalick’s roles include a theatre student whose perspective widens and one of the attackers, dodging the death penalty by pleading guilty; Tryon relates being the police officer on the scene cutting the cords binding a bloody body, while Yeaw is her concerned mother; Knowling plays a close female friend of “Matt” as well as the teen cyclist who found him dying in the Wyoming countryside; Sweeney gives the view of the head of the University of Wyoming theatre department as well as a local newspaper reporter; LaMonte gives us the empathetic Sheriff’s department investigator as well as the infamously cruel Fred Phelps.

This is an important piece of theatre, an examination of a life, a senseless sadistic crime, and of the rest of us – how we deal with what happened as well as our attitudes and beliefs.

We had seen a production before, on the 20th anniversary of Shepard’s death in 2018. I knew what to expect, however, this time I was struck by the degree of appropriately measured humor in this play. The awkward interactions that come from strangers from a New York theatre coming out West to talk to folks about this absolute worst thing that had happened does set up a few gentle laughs. Upon reflection of the kind of love for life Matt Shepard was known to exhibit this bit of levity is welcome, humanizing the many people dealing with this trauma in their own way. On the other hand, knowing this is based on true events, it didn’t take stage trickery to bring real tears to the actors’ eyes.

Only two performances, 7:30 p.m. Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday, remain as I post this. It’s on the IF Theatre Basile main stage, 719 E. St. Clair St., downtown Indianapolis; get tickets at indyfringe.org.

In new drama, girls seek meaning in naive ‘game’

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By Wendy Carson

Growing up is hard. Add to this living in a small town with only an abusive single parent, and an overactive imagination. Such is the situation of Rae and Molly, two best friends struggling to save each other from their collective traumas in “The JonBenèt Game,” a drama by Tori Keenan-Zelt presented by American Lives Theatre at IF Theatre.

The production is part of a National New Play Network Rolling World Premiere, directed by Jenni White who has been in workshop with the playwright to develop it first for Indianapolis (including a reading last year). In the coming months it will premiere with other companies across the United States as part of this new work’s development.

Remembered in flashback by adult Rae (Molly Bellner), the 12-year-old girls fantasize about running away to Chicago (their ideal big city) and Molly (Cass Knowling) becomes obsessed with the 1996 murder of six-year-old JonBenèt Ramsey, “the most famous Cold Case of our time.” Studying a 1999 book on the case like a bible, the two act out various scenarios of how the young girl lived and died. When their at-first harmless play-acting takes a dark turn, they are ripped apart and reviled throughout the town.

Rae is now an adult, trying to redeem herself as a guidance councilor at the Christian school she attended during that period. However, her life is again thrown into chaos by Hazel (Knowling), Molly’s adolescent daughter who has found her mother’s book on the Ramsey case.

Senior counselor Miss Kay (Lynne Perkins), whose decision it was to give Rae this chance at redemption, offers to take Hazel as her own charge, but life intervenes and Rae forms a bond with Hazel, who begins her own obsession, her own turn at the “game.”

At the crux of all this turmoil lies an all-important question: If you had a chance to relive one of the most defining moments of your life, knowing the costs, would you do anything differently?

In compelling performances, Bellner and Knowling present complex troubled characters. Bellner is our bridge between generations, unsure of her way at both ends and striving to understand. Rae, while seeking to help her best friend and that friend’s daughter in any way she can, finds that the physical scars she hid from her mother’s attacks are not nearly as painful as the monster she harbors deep within herself. Knowling portrays girls on the edge, frantically searching – Molly desiring a route to escaping her mentally-abusive mother, Hazel seeking answers in the shadow of her own Mom, perhaps hidden in a well-worn true-crime paperback.

Perkins gives us the adult in the room, ironically proving powerless as the forces of trauma overtake innocence – portrayed further in a moment as JonBenèt’s despairing mother.

Note this work comes with content warnings for suicide and self-harm, as well as the titular killing.

An exploration of grief, trauma, and dealing with coming of age or its denial, “The JonBenèt Game” runs through Jan. 26 at IF, home of IndyFringe, 719 E. St. Clair St., Indianapolis. For tickets, go to indyfringe.org.

‘August’ in June in Westfield

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By John Lyle Belden

It may be cliché, but the phrase “putting the ‘fun’ in dysfunctional” completely fits the Tony and Pulitzer winning tragicomedy “August: Osage County” by Tracy Letts, now on stage for another weekend at the Basile Westfield Playhouse, presented by Main Street Productions, directed by Brent Wooldridge.

Set in in 2007 in rural Oklahoma, where the hills near Tulsa meet the plains, we open with retired poet and professor Beverly Weston (Rob Lawson) hiring Johnna (Bella King) to help care for the house and his wife Violet (Sally Carter), who struggles with mental issues, cancer, and drug addiction. Being not related to anyone else in the play, the young Cheyenne woman will be about the only truly sane and sensible character in the cast.

Soon, Beverly disappears and family members come out of the woodwork (or at least fly in from other states). Strain, secrets, and substance use all take their toll in scenes both hilarious and disturbing – often simultaneously.

Carter gives a tour de force performance, swinging from one extreme to another, to moments of cool rationality, throughout. In turn, Violet’s daughters have their own issues with which they don’t deal well: Barbara (Molly Bellner) divorcing husband Bill (Jeff Peabody) and at wits end with teen daughter Jean (Megan Janning); Ivy (Monya Wolf) chafing to get out from under her mother’s thumb while keeping a devastating secret; and Karen (Caity Withers), who is set to marry Steve (JB Scoble), a guy so sketchy he could only be from Florida. Meanwhile, Violet’s sister Mattie Fay (Julie Dutcher) spreads bitterness that only her saintly patient husband Charlie (Jim LaMonte) can tolerate, saving her sharpest barbs for “loser” adult son Little Charles (Jonathan Rogers). Also on hand is Sheriff Deon Gilbeau (Mike Bauerle), who was Barbara’s prom date in high school. Each of these actors get several moments to shine.

Set design by Ron Roessler gives us a full house to hold all the action, while allowing easy movement, visibility and acoustics (attic scenes were as audible as on stage). Susan Yeaw is stage manager.

Hearts and dishes will break in this skewed portrait of Americana. Performances are Thursday through Sunday, June 15-18, at 230 N. Union St., Westfield. Get info and tickets at westfieldplayhouse.org.  

‘Good’ show at BCP

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By John Lyle Belden

Hard times can make hard people, but also “Good People,” in the hit 2011 Broadway play by David Lindsay-Abaire, now on stage at Buck Creek Players.

Margie (Molly Bellner) is a lifelong resident of Southie, a Boston working-class neighborhood — the kind of hardscrabble place one grows up planning to escape. For years, she struggled since dropping out of high school to take care of her baby, now a mentally disabled adult. Care for the unseen Joyce has made her late for work one too many times, and she is searching for a job again. Her friend Jean (Francie Mitchaner) and landlady Dotti (Susan Hill) suggest Margie look up her past boyfriend Mike (Jeremy Tuterow), a successful doctor, to see if he can help. Her visit to his office quickly becomes awkward, yet results in her getting an invitation to his birthday party at his nice home.

Later at the Bingo Hall (with Brian Noffke as the voice of the Priest calling the numbers), Margie meets Jean, Dotti, and her former Dollar Store supervisor, Stevie (Josh Rooks). She tells them about the party, and her hopes of hitting up someone there for a job. Jean notes that if she tells Mike that Joyce wasn’t born prematurely, making him the father, Margie could leverage that to get his help. But then Mike calls, saying the party has been cancelled – Margie doesn’t believe him, and goes anyway.

This play is best described as a rather dark comedy, wringing a good amount of humor from sad and uncomfortable situations. The struggles aren’t just with employment, as the Act II “party” with Mike and his wife Kate (Alicia Sims), a beautiful African-American woman, becomes reminiscent of “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.”

Bellner gives a brilliant performance, as a person for whom (“pardon my French,” she’d say) “busting your balls” is her love language. Her environment has brought her up so that being passive-aggressive, pushy and manipulative became necessary for survival. But it still comes across that Margie means well, that deep down she strives to be good, or at least “Good People” by Southie standards.

Mitchaner and Hill show in their characters that Margie isn’t unique, Jean and Dotti have only grown older and more cynical. But at least Dotti has her side-hustle, selling handmade (with Joyce’s help) wooden rabbits. Rooks sweetly plays the boy who never got out of Southie, but is making the best of it. Tuterow gives us the boy who did, but resents its shadow, while nursing a darkness that innocent Kate already suspects.

It’s interesting that to these folks, a Bingo jackpot is their “lottery dream.” Note the audience gets a chance to play, too, as Father Noffke calls a game during Intermission, complete with a prize.

With direction and excellent set design by Jim LaMonte, “Good People” has one more weekend, through Sunday, Feb. 13, at Buck Creek Playhouse, 11150 Southeastern Ave. (Acton Road Exit off I-74), Indianapolis. For info and tickets, visit buckcreekplayers.com.