The night before he flies to Puerto Vallarta for vacation, Sandra\u2019s beloved friend Ethan tells her something that sounds sad at first, ominous in retrospect.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like disappearing from my life,\u201d he says. \u201cPart of me just isn\u2019t in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
Three weeks later Ethan has, in fact, disappeared \u2014 gone off the grid in Mexico, his cell phone unused. Sandra has few answers in her own life, but she\u2019s determined to find out what happened to Ethan\u2019s.<\/p>\n
Playwright David Cale (\u201cHarry Clarke\u201d) writes shape-shifting stories, where self-discovery has a dark edge. Through March 8, Two Crows Theatre stages his 2022 one-woman play \u201cSandra,\u201d starring Colleen Madden, at Slowpoke Lounge & Cabaret in Spring Green.<\/p>\n
The play opens with ethereal piano music, evoking a yoga class near the beach. (Matthew Dean Marsh\u2019s solo piano score is simple and lovely.) Soon after she begins her search, Sandra, a middle-aged woman with a struggling Brooklyn caf\u00e9 and a failing marriage, finds herself swept up by a handsome Italian stranger. Luca is not who he appears to be, but to her own surprise, Sandra is not either.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n Colleen Madden plays 29 characters in “Sandra,” produced by Two Crows Theatre at Slowpoke Lounge and Cabaret.\u00a0<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n Madden, a core company member at nearby American Players Theatre, unfolds the steady unraveling of Sandra\u2019s life as though she\u2019s telling it for the first time. Over 90 minutes, we watch Sandra rediscover herself as a sexual being. We see the scales fall from her eyes in the face of her husband\u2019s casual cruelty, and her dogged pursuit of Ethan\u2019s fate.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not going to be frightened off,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n As Sandra questions her motives and senses growing danger, Madden\u2019s face cracks open with vulnerability and fear. Her voice lowers to embody Luca\u2019s Italian drawl, then tightens and lifts to channel Sandra\u2019s judgy caf\u00e9 manager.<\/p>\n Few performers have the extraordinary skill Madden displays here, the ability to make a performance feel so fully lived in. (Carrie Coon, now on Broadway in \u201cBug<\/a>,\u201d is one other.) Watching her feels like close-up magic.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Colleen Madden stars in “Sandra,” produced by Two Crows Theatre Co. Samantha Martinson directs the play by David Cale.\u00a0<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n
\n HANNAH JO ANDERSON<\/span>
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\n ![\"Sandra](\"https:\/\/bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com\/captimes.com\/content\/tncms\/assets\/v3\/editorial\/3\/8b\/38b3bd6e-8b0c-451a-8cce-6802a2c6c584\/69a36396d8c3d.image.jpg?resize=150%2C225)
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