Spanish playwright Guillem Clua's play (as translated by D.J. Sanders) is more significant than enjoyable. This regional premiere, embodied by four strong, although somewhat overblown, performances, offers a significant message in spare language. Director Roger Benington's hand is enhanced by the powerful set, lighting and sound design, thanks to Keven Myhre, Z., and Cynthia L. Kehr Rees, respectively.
Clua's play reads as an indictment of the after-effects of war, using the contrasting stories of two couples inhabiting a decrepit hotel room in an unnamed third-world country. Neither unfolds into the expected romantic liaison, devolving instead into episodes of power and exploitation. Benington has mined the material to create the texture of a double-exposure, actors passing each other without conscious acknowledgement, even as each story haunts the other.
Frederick Salomon (Morgan Lund) is an American photojournalist invited back to the country where, 20 years earlier, he captured the war's most iconic image, that of a schoolgirl flying through the air from a bomb blast, her body in flames.
The photograph made him famous, but its weight has stopped him from taking photos. Before he is honored at a United Nations luncheon, he meets with a young reporter, Hanna (Kenya Rene), for an interview that turns into a violent confrontation.
In the parallel story, Dr. Brown, a medical doctor and U.N. delegate (Paul Kiernan), meets with an impoverished mother, Ida (Deena Marie Manzaneres), who is willing to do anything to obtain medical care for her young daughter.
In the first story, even before we realize just why, Rene's stance and clipped accent convey the perfect tone of righteous indignation to challenge the older journalist. What Lund gets right is his character's weary authority. He easily conveys Salomon's eccentricities, yet his characteristic smirk makes it difficult to see the psychological vacuum at the man's center.
In the contrasting plot, Kiernan subsumes his own appearance to create someone else, the thoroughly despicable Dr. Brown. Even as he overacts, Kiernan's creation is mesmerizing, well-matched by the bravery of Manzanares' Ida, whose physical presence is as desperate and meek as her partner's is sexually exploitative.
For those who can stomach the play's adult content (which includes a depiction of simulated sex, and references to a more degrading off-stage act), "Skin in Flames" is worth watching.
But the question might be just who is the target audience for this drama, which seems to want to provoke a conversation about American imperialism. The playwright has settled for fashioning characters who serve as metaphors, rather than digging in to tell real stories about real people.
If the work doesn't quite serve as a progressive's call-to-arms, maybe its most important message is what it says about SLAC. Perhaps Salt Lake's once-edgy little professional theater company is again ready to produce the kind of stories that inflame our collective consciousness. Embracing the challenge, that is, of not just making us laugh, but holding us rapt.
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* ELLEN FAGG can be contacted at ellenf@sltrib.com or 801-257-8621. Send comments to livingeditor@sltrib.com.
'Skin in Flames'
* WHERE: Salt Lake Acting Company, 168 W. 500 North, Salt Lake City.
* WHEN: Reviewed Friday; continues at 7:30 p.m. Wednesdays through Thursdays; 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays; and 2 and 7 p.m. Sundays through Feb. 24.
* RUNNING TIME: 90 minutes, no intermission.
* TICKETS: $27-$32 ($13-$18 student/30 and under); 363-7522 or www.saltlakeacting company.org.
* BOTTOM LINE: Brave, risky acting burns up the stage in a story that doesn't transform its metaphors into flesh-and-blood characters.
