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Anaerobic Respiration

nytheatre.com review by Akia Squitieri
August 15, 2005

Anaerobic Respiration opens with Pegan leading you through her step aerobics class, and then onward through her controlled but spiraling downward life. Pegan lives in a neatly planned environment, which consists of teaching at the gym, maintaining healthy eating habits (simple spaghetti for dinner EVERY night), avoiding her genetic disposition for stroke, and attempting to get her not-so-smart grocery-clerk boyfriend Danny to leave her alone.Pegan lives with her brother, Russ, who has recently become engaged to his Internet girlfriend of eight years, Kathy. This threat of drastic change sets Pegan’s world upon its side.As the story progresses, Pegan begins to be haunted by flashbacks of her dog (or wait: was it really her father?) having a stroke and subsequently drowning in a six-foot dirt hole that she dug as a child. Mother’s yelling and constant reminders of avoiding a stroke, followed by Kathy's effort to cook Russ’s dinner, help to further derail Pegan’s sanity, until she finally makes several attempts on the innocent but meddling Kathy’s life, bringing a whole new set of problems upon herself.What carries this unusual and abstract story so well is the cast. Jessica Crandall portrays Pegan’s wound-up and controlling personality with precision while also allowing the character’s vulnerabilities to show. She glides easily from rapid-fire dialogue to a meltdown in a pile of dirt with ease and finesse. As her brother Russ, Brian Wallace plays up his bits as a neurotic recluse very well, but when it comes to the emotional blows with Pegan in the final scenes, yelling is all he can seem to muster. Danny is played to absolute perfection by Jordan Reeves. His bumbling and not-so-bright character is hilarious and riveting to watch, as he does not only play on the cliches of being dumb, but is so truthful in his love for Pegan that you can’t help but root for his delightful underdog. Samara Abrams, as the meddling and intrusive Kathy, is skillful in her character's subtle yet somehow innocent maneuvers for control over Russ.Playwright Krista Knight deserves accolades for her original and inventive way of storytelling. Alex Torra’s direction, while slow-building, finally gains riveting momentum and provides the audience with an interesting staging to go hand in hand with Pannil Camp’s visually abstract set, which consists of layered aerobic steps centered by a pit of dirt. The sound design of heart beats and respiration sounds is clever and very fitting to the overall tone of the play.Anaerobic Respiration is both disturbing and beautiful to watch, if you enjoy a little mania in your life—and who doesn’t?