The opening performance of kates was packed with well-wishers from Playhouse in the Park, celebrating kates director and producer Cait Robinson, also a resident director at the Playhouse. Robinson has cast several Playhouse acting interns in the show, including both Kates in the title roles: Tatum Hunter and Candice Handy.
kates is a “new fairy tale” written by Katharine Sherman (I promise, she is the last Kate that I will introduce), adapted from a story originating in Scotland’s Orkney Islands. Kate and Kate’s parents marry when the girls are 12. The wicked now-stepmother, jealous that her step-Kate is prettier than her own Kate, taps a dark magic to give her new daughter the head of a sheep. From here, the Kates’ journey to reverse the spell takes them through countless fairy tale tropes: an encounter with a mysterious beggar woman, a quest to heal a mysterious illness, the discovery that the most magical word in the world is one’s own name.
Hunter is delightfully wide-eyed and naive, as one must be to charge blindly through enchanted realms. Handy is as determined and expressive as one can be while wearing a mesh sheep mask. (If you’d like to hear more than bleating from Handy, catch her in pet fish, another production in this year’s Fringe.)
Sherman’s script is lyrical. In particular, Bari Robinson’s Ringleader, a Dionysian figure set to tempt the weak-willed, speaks in a flowing cadence full of rhyme. As the Prince (Mac Blais) grows weaker under the Ringleader’s spell, he seems to mimic his captor’s wordplay (“It’s a laugh, it’s a breeze. It’s a wasting disease”). Each character’s dialogue seems to follow its own meter, heightening the story’s poetry.
There is room to expand the magic in this fairy tale. While a large white sheet is transformed from boat to coat to bed, it is without much whimsy or surprise. Kate’s transmogrification consists of plunking a mask on her head unceremoniously. The most eye-catching scenes take place in a dream realm, signified through a soundtrack of surf rock and 1960s psychedelia. It is an interesting choice, including amusing choreography (Carolyn Guido Clifford) for the sleepwalkers — I only wonder if it could be taken further.
Also missing for me was a moral, a lesson of some kind. The description calls kates “an exploration of identity and sisterhood,” but that did not connect for me. The Kates do not seem to learn much on their adventure; solutions come to them through luck and happenstance. The show clocks in at a speedy 40 minutes, perhaps leaving some space to slow the story down and reconnect to its heart.
The CINCINNATI FRINGE FESTIVAL continues through June 11. Find CityBeat reviews of 41 early performances here. For a full schedule and more info about Fringe, visit cincyfringe.com.
This article appears in May 31 – Jun 7, 2017.