Edith Can Shoot Things
And Hit Them

Play (2011)
by A. Rey Pamatmat

With Maria Jan Carreon (Edith), Gideon Bautista (Kenny), Eddie Shields (Benji)

Kenny (Gideon Bautista) is sixteen and clandestine lovers with Benji (Eddie Shields), a friend in high school. Kenny’s sister Edith (Maria Jan Carreon) is twelve and a real spitfire. Kenny and Edith are, for all intents and purposes, orphaned. Their mother died awhile ago and their father is essentially non-present, spending the bulk of his time at his girlfriend’s place. In loco parentis, Kenny tries to protect Edith, but she has too much piss and vinegar in her system to be kept down.

What a beautifully written play this is, and, with equivalent demonstration of compelling writing in After All The Terrible Things I Do, also by A. Rey Pamatmat and running concurrently at the Huntington Theatre Company and also at the Boston Center for the Arts, is a real testimony to this young writer’s talents.

Here, beccoming open about one’s honosexuality is a central theme, as it is in After All The Terrible Things I Do. There is no ambiguity on the part of the protagonists about their sexual identity – they do not wrestle with their inclinations, but, personally, are clear and resolute about them. Rather, they wrestle with the prejudices of parents, other adults, and peers, and with their own hesitations, to be open about who they are.

The potency of this play is the interaction between the sexual awakening theme between Kenny and Benji, and the quasi-parental theme involving Kenny’s relationship with Edith. Love, caring, and responsibility for Edith, all traits clearly demonstrated by Kenny (subtly but beautifully expressed by Gideon Bautista’s performance), are crucial counterparts to the way in which he comes to terms with himself. The implication of this narrative is that forthrightness about one’s own nature is clearly conjoined with one’s capacity to realize a sense of responsibility in the wider circles of one’s life. Courage to be open with, and about, oneself, is the germ of the moral stance. And one of the great revelations in the play is that the determination of a twelve year old girl to stand up for herself can inspire a sixteen year old boy, Benji, to do the same for himself.

This production is beautifully done. All of the performances are notably good, all different in tone, which makes for great interest in their interactions.

Maria Jan Carreon as Edith is amazingly vivid as the twelve year old. She is so funny and out there that the role really speaks volumes about courage and forthrightness. It is Edith’s determination, in her own idiom of defending her turf and her rights, that provides a model, especially for Benji, who has had trouble finding a way to be clear with the world about who he is, and Carreon’s performance makes this unlikely source of inspiration entirely believable.

Eddie Shields as Benji is exquisitely nervous and insecure, demonstrating a particular kind of spinelessness that makes him vulnerable and quaintly adorable but also pitiable. His relations with the very solid Kenny and the unbelievably determined and forthright Edith gradually feeds his own sense of whom he might become. Shields gives a nice sense of this transition.

Gideon Bautista as Kenny gives a solid, and beautifully nuanced performance, delivering a sense of quiet integrity in the midst of a personal and familial storm, all the while generating a sense of stability and determination. He is the Atticus Finch (To Kill A Mockingbird) of this play, and Bautista rises nicely to the occasion.

The writing of the play has, at once, a great naturalness to it, allowing its flow of dialogue to appear seamless and ordinary, while also providing a genuinely developed narrative structure. This is true as well of After All The Terrible Things I Do and demonstrates a wonderful capacity on Pamatmat’s part to create real drama out of what seem like normal human landscapes.

The set by Cristin M. Todesco, which features a kind of ladder leading to a loft to which the characters escape wittily serves other functions as well, including, with an attached wheel, the inside of a car, is ingenious.

The Lowdown: A wonderful production of a beautifully written play, nicely acted and directed.

– BADMan