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Running Time: 1:25 – no intermission
A very personal work about a rarely dramatized issue: Haitian immigrants

Storyline: A one woman show of a Haitian woman who came to America at a young age with her mother to escape doom after her father was murdered. Later she returns to the island of her birth in search of an understanding of her roots and the reasons why her father was murdered before her eyes. Note: The "bridge" reference in the title is to the connections to be made with those alive and dead, while the "bodies" reference is to a book that lists all the murdered and martyred Haitians in the past decades.

A one-actor evening is a tight rope act. In this case, the high-wire work is compounded since Kathleen Gonzales is both the actor and the playwright. Fortunately there is a director who helped mold the piece and brought in a skilled group of technical artisans. This production was initially performed at Ohio State University where Gonzales received her MFA in acting. In building her play, Gonzales found a way to educate the audience without being either overbearing or pedantic. The universality of the lives depicted may be a stretch at times, but it is refreshing to be witness to new immigrant stories as America becomes a majority minority country over the next few decades. Director Patrick Crowley is a member of the Lincoln Center Directors Lab and a 2008 winner of the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities Artist Fellowship and Young Artist Program Grant. He has a nice touch for keeping things moving and bringing the action to life rather than making this merely a monologue. The production has some unexpected moments of alarm as the arc of the play progresses. That arc moves from Gonzales in America not knowing much of her past and why she has no father in her life, through a passage to Haiti and what she learns there, to her return to America with knowledge gained and resilience intact.

Gonzales is a likable, earnest actor who works hard to entertain her audience. She moves with great authority through this short evening as the central anchor surrounded by those characters who impact her life. The characters are a rangy and intriguing lot from American street kids who mock her to an overbearing therapist trying to reach her, to adults and family members both dead and alive who are sometimes represented in voice overs or short scene work. Gonzales is most adept in portraying a certain number of the characters including the therapist with a sing-song voice and high pitched inflection, big waving arm moments and desire to “just be so helpful,” as well as several American adolescents who give Marie-Therese a difficult time in her early years and males such as a taxi driver with the directness of words and lilt of speaking. She also sings and speaks in a French-patois that sounds enchanting. With her ability to channel stereotypical urban youth, she also gives the production some wonderful moments of laughter. However, as the script progresses Gonzales is less able to effectively differentiate characters distinctly. When she depicts the death of her father at the hands of those who were seeking retribution for his independent nature, Gonzales has the audience with her at the moment of his murder in a way that this reviewer could feel many jump from their seats in reaction to the words and sounds they were hearing.

This is a show on a minimal budget, but an audience will soon forget the shoestring funds and settle in on what is presented. The set is basically a chair, a scrim and a small square area set off by blue fabric on the floor. Jason Cowperthwaite has lit this show so that audiences can “feel” heat or terror or mystical worlds contained in caves. The nifty use of a scrim to give some depth to this intimate production is an example of what can be done to move something from mere story-telling to dramatic action. John Punsalan’s graphic work is projected on the scrim to provide both a delightful evocation of the country that is Haiti or the mind set of Gonzalez as she moves about the tiny set. The sound design brings chants and singing and voices from the beyond straight into the audience’s ears.

Written by Kathleen Gonzales. Directed by Patrick Crowley. Design: Ola Odeniran (set and properties) John Punsalan (projections) Jason Cowperthwaite (lights) Chris Baine (sound) Anu Yadav (photography) Rosemary Johnson (stage manager). Cast: Kathleen Gonzales.

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Running time 1:30 - no intermission
t A Potomac Stages Pick for superb acting and
 a satisfying script
Ticket price - $15 - $20

Storyline: A veteran of the Iraq war, far from his West Texas roots, lives in a makeshift tent in New York City and works for a temp agency to make ends meet when his buddy from the war talks him into seeking help for obvious stress problems from a therapist just starting at a clinic. There's more to the relationship of the veteran to his buddy and of the buddy to the therapist, however, than first meets the eye.

Author Alvarado is from Pharr, Texas, about ten miles north of the Rio Grande. He's written one man shows such as We're 'Mericans and short children's shows like The Lion and the Mouse: a Radio Show. In this much more serious endeavor, he creates three interesting and even compelling characters and does a fine job of crafting the interaction between them. The plot turns on one or two coincidences too many , but you are not likely to notice this until after the hour and a half speeds by. A strength of the piece is that it avoids being about this particular war and concentrates, instead, on the human reactions to individual experiences. This brings home basic truths as no lengthy diatribe can.

Lisa Sauber creates a complex character as the woman who tries to come to the aid of the veteran. She's a free spirited bar hopping young woman one moment and a challenged professional therapist the next. She handles the multiple facets Alvarado wrote into the character without seeming to over play either the free spirit or the professional, allowing the two aspects to meld as the plot progresses. Raúl Castillo and Todd Spicer convey a sense of camaraderie that makes their status as combat buddies quite believable. Spicer is particularly good at throwaway lines that contribute to the atmosphere of the piece without drawing undue attention, while Castillo gives a feeling of intensity to the role of the disturbed vet.

The tight quarters of Flashpoint's Mead Theatre Lab with its 79 seats exposes any production to an intensity of audience scrutiny that can be withering. There's just no place to hide any imperfections. The audience is literally in contact with the performance as those in the front row have to watch where they put their feet and those in the second row worry about those in front sliding back to allow the actors room for entrances and exits. It also means that the audience itself becomes a palpable presence during the show. On press night one member of the audience fainted, falling into the playing space. (The cast continued on the opposite side of the space - about six feet away - while her companion helped her up.)  When a piece is performed as well as this one is, such intensity of exposure turns out to be a virtue, creating a shared experience with strong emotional rewards.

Written by Mando Alvarado. Directed by Michael Ray Escamilla. Design: Raul Abrego (set) Elisa Richards (costumes) Stephen Arnold (lights) Gregg Fisher (sound and music) Enoch Chan (photography) Zac Chandler (stage manager). Cast: Raúl Castillo, Lisa Sauber, Todd Spicer.