Review: ‘The Unseen’ at the Road Theatre
THE UNSEEN In some unspecified country, two prisoners, Valdez (Matt Kirkwood) and Wallace (Darin Singleton) have been held for years in isolation cells. They are close enough to talk to but not to see each other. They don’t know why they have been incarcerated, or by whom. They are constantly questioned and tortured, and subjected to nerve-shattering noises. They spend their days carrying out private rituals, and playing word and memory games in an attempt to preserve their sanity. The only mortal they see is the guard Smash (Douglas Dickerman), who is both torturer and caretaker. Craig Wright’s allegorical new play keeps its larger meaning sketchy, perhaps because it lacks a concrete context. It’s interesting mainly for the interaction of the two men, and the strange and whimsical nature of the guard, Smash. Wright directs his play skillfully on Desma Murphy’s handsomely bleak set. Kirkwood and Singleton provide richly detailed portraits of the two men who comfort themselves with escape fantasies, and Dickerman creates a bizarre figure as the guard who hates his charges because he can’t help feeling their pain as he tortures them.