The Swan: The Collective Face

Swan, meet philandering Milkman. Bill, the swan, or perhaps man... or perhaps mutant. In many ways, it doesn't really seem to matter as love, no matter how depraved, blooms eternal in Middle America.

A reading of Elizabeth Egloff's script, presented by The Collective Face this past weekend, charts one woman's desperate search for love, even if she has to depart the strictures of homo sapiens to find it. Originally produced by the Actor's Theatre of Louisville, an institution known for developing some of the finest new American plays, Ms. Egloff's story is certainly an interesting one, highly reminiscent of the classic Greek myth, Leda and the swan. Yet there is really nothing divine to be found in these pages. With a highly truncated scenic structure better suited to film, Ms. Egloff cuts off any interaction long before it can come to any form of fruition.

The cast all give this problematic material their best. Stephanie Candelaria cuts a naeurotic figure searching desperately for love while Cooper Westbrook does his best to make the openly philandering Kevin seem dynamic. If these two figures fall flat it falls to a lack of clear conception in the project and being simply outshone by the completely bizarre he-swan, Bill. Jacob Givens is a delightfully inhuman bird-man, with movement and focus distinctly avian.

Yet, as a part of The Collective Face's Summer Reading series, the entire project seems somewhat clumsy. Generally, readings are presented to showcase the work of a writer and lack the elements of full production in order to keep Spectacle from outshining plot and character. Yet in this "reading" there are not only full costumes and production-esque staging, but a full set and props as well. Watching the actors juggle props along with their scripts, particularly with complete disregard to audience expectation in terms of readings, is quite cringe-worthy. Further, given the fact that the scripts were never resorted to for the reading, the entire timbre of the project seems ill-conceived.

At the end of the day, though the work of The Collective Face is to generally be applauded, one finds that this piece simply does not live up to their preceding standards. Time would be much better spent either developing the reading with the cast, or taking the effort to produce it fully. Hybrid quasi-readings are simply half-measures that, in trying to do a bit of everything, do nothing particularly well.

By Elizabeth Egloff; directed & designed by David I.L. Poole; A Collective Face Production. At the Savannah Children's Theatre, 2160 E. Victory Drive, Savannah; (912) 238-9015. August 20-21st.

WITH: Stephanie Candelaria (Dora Hand), Cooper Westbrook (Kevin), Jacob Givens (Bill)