Silent Sins

Written by Laureen Smith, Amy

Silberman, and the Cast

Directed by Laureen Smith

At the Agassiz Theatre

This Weekend

The theme of Silent Sins is hard to miss. The playbill includes two inserts, one citing FBI statistics on violence done to women, and another quoting Psalm 55 ("Cast your burden on the Lord..."). The production never lets you forget this is a women's play.

The staging is spartan, with all the action taking place around a group of chairs and a single table, which serve as a shelter where battered women discuss--sometimes with more than a touch of melodrama--marital disputes. The disputes are reinacted with only minor scene changes.

A woman tyrannized by her lesbian lover, an Asian woman who prefers career to children, and a mother who accepts a horrific marriage as God's will are united by feelings of guilt and confusion. As the women discuss their lives, each remembers poignant incidents and brings them to the stage.

A touching reconciliation between the scorned lesbian and her lover melts into a discussion at the shelter which devolves into a sad yet comic aside when a wife-beater laments: "I don't wake up in the morning, brush my teeth, look in the mirror and say, 'I'm going to beat my wife today.'"

Yet the play's message is not as subtle as its movement. The director, divinity student Laureen Smith, who wrote the play, cannot resist turning every intimate exchange between husband and wife into a scathing condemnation of a society that silently condones the exploitation of women. Least the audience forget, Smith periodically sends a bruised woman across the stage to state haltingly that beatings are simply a marital duty.

The cast is surprisingly successful at breathing life into stilted lines. Josine Shapiro, as a Jew whose husband beats her when sections of the newspaper cannot be found, brings a convincing accent and engaging meekness to her role.

Lisa Langford delivers a powerful performance as Emily, a possessive woman who beats her lesbian lover. Her emotional outbursts seem genuine and natural. Langford's equally able performance in a second role, that of a submissive lover of a violent man, provides a striking contrast with her first.

Unfortunately Twanna Latrice Hill, who plays Emily's lover, never lets the audience forget that she is acting, distracting from Langford's efforts.

Silent Sins taxes its two male players, who take on roles as husbands, lovers, and police officers. Joe Song's distinctive drawl adds interest to his otherwise routine performance.

In one inventive scene, Dona Rose (Robin Nabi) visits a priest who tells her that by saying the rosary she will invite the Holy Spirit into her home and see all of her problems solved. In the background a chorus of women warn Dona Rose against the advice.

Silent Sins, which will use its reciepts to benefit Harbor Me, a group for battered women, is often as didactic as inventive. Yet outstanding individual performances and a gripping message recommend it as a play worth seeing.