The audience is facing the confines of a college gym where a group of young women gather to learn the techniques of self-defense. The class is led by the tautly muscled, extremely focused Brandi , a VP of a college sorority who wants to inculcate the skills necessary to neutralize attackers. On You-Shin Chen’s evocative set featuring mats and padded walls, Brandi shows that she has all the moves, all the right words.
Amaya Braganza’s Nikki comes into the group as a shuffling mouse, grows in confidence , and then provides the play with an unexpected and chilling twist, forcing the characters—including Brandi—to rethink her zeal, and the purpose of the classes. The play’s final scenes—in which Chen’s design, Derosier’s lighting and Mikhail Fiksel’s impressive sound design help deliver a thrilling climax—take the audience to a series of unexpected spaces that illustrate, both whimsically and shatteringly, how we grow in and out of so many identities, and how we come to be who we are.
In front of us a raised stage has just six train seats on it, but Arnulfo Maldonado’s set, Lap Chi Chu’s lighting, Daniel Kluger’s sound effects, and 59 Productions’ projections coalesce to provide one of the most involving theatrical experiences so far of the season. As the journey continues, the landscape and light outside are conveyed by a background bar-code of color shifts. The stage rotates, and the six seats become occupied by four other passengers.