Orange, Hat & Grace
cast list
Reyna de Courcy, Stephanie Roth Haberle, Matthew Maher
directed by
Sarah Benson
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There's something oddly undercooked about Gregory S. Moss's mysterious new play, Orange, Hat & Grace, now playing at Soho Rep with a fantastic cast under the direction of Sarah Benson. Despite many intriguing elements, there's not much beneath the surface of Moss's new play, which, though it hints at something truly unsettling just beneath the surface, never quite delivers on its promise.
The play begins with Grace (Reyna de Courcy) emerging from the dirt-strewn ground, done up in creepy-little-girl style by costume designer David Hyman. Immediately, we're tipped off that there's something dark and linguistically interesting here; de Courcy provides the necessary foreshadowing to hook us in and want to make us learn more. Unfortunately, what follows is something altogether less intriguing and unexpectedly ordinary.
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Immediately following this brief prologue, we meet Orange (Stephanie Roth Haberle) and Hat (Matthew Maher). Hat stumbles upon Orange's house in the woods as he's looking for fire wood. Despite her hemming and hawing, Orange takes a liking to this strange visitor, and soon enough he's her bedfellow. As portrayed by Haberle, Orange is full of tough charm and rough-and-tumble hard living. Maher brings a feckless innocence to unassuming Hat.
The story plays out a bit like a modernist-twinged folktale. There's something inherently current about the language on display, which occasionally soars, particularly during Moss's delicately crafted monologues. And yet there's something timeless, too, about the story he's chosen to tell - of a mother who fears her guilt is beyond redemption.
Unfortunately, Moss's intentions are clearer than his execution. A final scene involving our three protagonists begins to hint at what Moss wants to tell us - about abandonment and loneliness, the longing for closeness, and the delusions of our lives. Unfortunately, this final thrilling moment feels mostly unearned, like a fantastic end to something strangely incomplete. There's promise to be found in Orange, Hat, & Grace, but what's on display at Soho Rep is merely a fine production of a deeply flawed play.
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