Skin Deep
Is Skin in Flames going up in smoke?
As the schoolgirl flies, propelled by an explosion, she seems to gaze into the camera.
We don't see the picture driving Skin in Flames, Spanish playwright Guillem Clua's drama about a photojournalist haunted by his most famous image, but we've seen enough war photography to understand its power.
The InterAct Theatre Company's East Coast premiere focuses on photographer Salomon, returning to an unnamed war-torn country to accept a politically motivated award. Seething local writer Hanna pokes his conscience: "If you saw her now," she demands about his unknown subject, "what would you say to her? Would you ask for forgiveness?"
Another tense exchange plays out simultaneously: American doctor Brown expects sex from native Ida to pay for her ill daughter's care. Starkly naked, their carnal transaction builds along with Hanna and Salomon's political debate.
Clua's script (translated by DJ Sanders) specifies no location. "Things here are different," Hanna states ironically, "than any other country in the world." This could be Iraq, Afghanistan or the Balkans, resulting in global stereotyping: Americans are ignorant, selfish, rapacious men, while Third World countries are scarred, victimized, desperate women.
Skin in Flames convinces when the characters become real, which happens intermittently between grand speeches and contrived outrages: Buck Schirner's Salomon comes alive when confronting the photographer's classic dilemma (should he have photographed the girl, or helped her?). Joe Guzman balances horror and humor in monstrous Dr. Brown, but since we know from the get-go that he's lying, we strain to believe that Ida, performed bravely with raw anguish by Charlotte Northeast, is so completely duped. Clua demands an interminable dramatic high note from Leah Walton's Hanna, which this poised, skilled actress pulls off sincerely despite the overstated script, which ends with a clunky timeline clarification.
Director Seth Rozin's production highlights the human interaction with Matt Saunders' realistic hotel room (right down to the gentle breeze fluttering the curtains at the open window) and sound designer Christopher Colucci's tense, cinematic underscoring. Brown and Ida's cold sexual encounters play out with brutal realism, but the play's politics lack the same grounding.
Aiming for universality, Skin in Flames fails to make its specific characters or their political positions tangible. As Firesign Theatre asked long ago, how can you be in two places at once when you're really nowhere at all?
Skin in Flames
Through June 24, InterAct Theatre Company, The Adrienne Theatre, 2030 Sansom St., 215-568-8079, www.InterActTheatre.org
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