'Traces' navigates the darkness admirably

By Lisa Bornstein, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published January 25, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

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Baby, it's cold outside.

Really. We're talking backwoods Alaska, middle of winter - just the place you'd expect a raving woman in bridal gown and tiara to burst through your door and upend your life.

Cindy Lou Johnson's 1989 play Brilliant Traces is set in a whiteout, but its destination is fairly clear. You put a crazed woman and a reticent man alone onstage together and it's a pretty safe bet they'll end up together. Now they just have to make the journey interesting.

For the most part they do, aided by director Len Matheo, who keeps a two-person dialogue from becoming static.

Lisa DeCaro, absolutely magnetic last fall in Some Girl(s), plays Rosannah, who has hiked from her abandoned car through a blizzard, arriving at a cabin where the first sound, through the darkness, is her banging on the door, screaming, "I'm a person in serious trouble!"

She's a windstorm of her own, barreling into the life of the nearly silent Henry Harry. She has no idea how she got there, and the play sets up the mystery that has to carry the next 90 minutes: How did these people end up alone in the back of nowhere?

DeCaro brings a blend of quirky energy and desperation to the role of a woman who has clearly fled a wedding, but for unknown reasons. Rosannah is often unsympathetic, showing herself to be immature and selfish, and any expectation of logic must be abandoned.

Jason Maxwell's reticence nicely offsets her manic affect. As Henry, he begins the play as a hulk under a blanket, as motivated to feed and clothe this distraught woman as he is to get her out of his solitude.

This trio, actors and director, do valiant work to make a repetitive argument (over whether she'll stay or go) entertaining. Maxwell exhibits a tender fragility, and when they find a moment of mutual giggles, it's like the door has been opened for a sweep of air. Matheo creates a lingering image of him huddled under a table and her speaking to him through the top.

DeCaro and Maxwell don't have a natural chemistry between them, and the play begins to bog down under its premise in the latter third, but it's a fine production that moves surely toward its inevitable conclusion.

Brilliant Traces

* Grade: B

* When and where: 7:30 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 2:30 p.m. Sundays, through Feb. 3, Playwright Theatre, 2119 E. 17th Ave.

* Cost: $17 to $22

* Information: 303-839-1361

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