Fans of popular contemporary playwright Lauren Gunderson won’t want to miss one of her newest plays, Natural Shocks, now available for virtual viewing from Milwaukee’s Next Act Theater.
The play, which opened in New York Off-Broadway in 2018, already has been produced at Colorado and California theaters. This filmed version for Next Act originally was produced for another Wisconsin theater troupe in tiny Sturgeon Bay, Wis. It is presented as Next Act’s final show in its all-virtual 2020-21 season.
The play’s director, Michael Cotey, also staged Next Act’s recent virtual production of Bill Cain’s 9 Circles. Both of these productions make effective use of the filmed format to bring their intensity up-close-and-personal to the viewing audience. As in the final scene of 9 Circles, which is totally focused on a single actor’s face, Natural Shocks is almost completely devoid of anything besides the face of actor Jennifer Vosters, who stars in this one-woman show. While 9 Circles makes excellent use of Next Act’s stage, Natural Shocks goes one step further. Since the play is set in the basement of a house, the entire production is filmed inside an actual home’s basement. Often, the main character (Angela) is framed by what is typically found in basements: shelves of Christmas decorations, clear plastic wardrobe boxes, furnace vents, and so forth. Angela speaks to the audience for the whole performance. She spends much of the play assessing her risk of surviving a tornado, which has driven her to the basement in the first place.
In the opening scenes, Angela is wide-eyed with terror, trying to distract herself by talking aloud about all the things she has been taught about tornadoes (“Stay away from windows. Have water available.”) Meanwhile, the loud, roaring sound of a tornado (sound by Peter Goode) is heard overhead. During her monologue, Angela frequently glances to the basement ceiling, as if to reassure herself that it’s still intact.
Although this play wasn’t written specifically for a Midwest audience, it could have been. While America’s Midwest is usually immune to the natural dangers of hurricanes, floods, wildfires and earthquakes (okay, not always), tornadoes are another story. Many mid-westerners can recall huddling in the basement after the loud tornado siren went off. Even as adults, one can usually recall vivid memories of these tornado drills. Parents would insist that the whole family hustle down to the basement, making sure that everyone “stayed put” until the all-clear was sounded.
One cannot say enough positive things about the feelings of real terror and dread conjured by actor Jennifer Vosters. A string of superlatives cannot do justice to her magnificent performance. Although she has done some work in Milwaukee and Madison, Vosters also has been seen in the area’s preeminent summer theater, American Players Theater in Spring Green, Wis. In this production, it also looks as though Vosters does her own camera work, as no other videographers are mentioned in the credits. Despite this added challenge, Vosters manages to maintain a sense of exquisite tension throughout this production.
Yes, the play has its oddly humorous moments. But by and large, it is an expression of a young woman’s uncertainty and isolation in a very scary situation.
In one sense, Natural Shocks is a modern riff on Hamlet’s most famous soliloquy (i.e., “to be or not to be”). In fact, the play’s title is taken from a phrase of this speech. During her monologue, Angela identifies with this Shakespearean character. She even repeats portions of Hamlet’s speech at various intervals during the play. Audiences might begin to wonder about the cause of this impending tornado. What kind of natural disaster is this young woman really hiding from?
The play does have a clever and well-conceived twist at the end (which will not be revealed here). It is a gripping and intense ride that theatergoers will not want to miss. Next Act has a fitting conclusion to one of theater’s most unusual seasons ever.
