This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2017, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Like life, theater is unpredictable. Because the performance is live, acting intensity, timing and audience response must all mesh; if they don't, the show doesn't work. The audience also has definite expectations: Musical comedy is not Greek tragedy; Shakespeare is not Tennessee Williams. But some playwrights relish playing with those expectations; they like to surprise their audiences and keep them off balance.

This is certainly the case with Johnna Adams' "Gidion's Knot," which just opened at Pinnacle Acting Company. The situation seems straightforward enough: A mother has come to her son's elementary school for a parent-teacher conference. But what the mother and the teacher discover as their meeting unfolds is not what they — or we — anticipate.

The reason for Corryn's — the mother's — visit is that the teacher, Heather, suspended Gidion. Because the suspension had disastrous consequences, she wants to know what caused it. Heather shows her "a very disturbing" paper that Gidion wrote and was circulating among the students. The paper is extremely violent and graphic, and Heather says she felt she needed to protect her students from it. Corryn, who is a college literature professor, does not react the way Heather expects. "This is wonderful writing," she exclaims, "fierce, brave and cruel." She accuses Heather of trying to stifle her students' creativity and launches into a diatribe against "people with limited imaginations."

Unraveling the mystery of Corryn is one of the most intriguing aspects of "Gidion's Knot," and Tiffani Di Gregorio captures the character's ambiguity perfectly in her performance. She prowls around Jared Larkin's simple classroom set, then sits placidly at her son's desk. She cordially says, "This doesn't have to be adversarial," then aggressively asks Heather, "Is that when you began to hate him?" She vacillates between anger at the way her son was treated and guilt that she failed him when he needed her most. Is she simply upset by what has happened or more deeply emotionally unstable?

The playwright Adams gives Stacey Jenson less to work with as Heather, but the actor makes the most of what's there, deftly balancing attempts to calmly defuse the volatile situation with defense of her responsibility to her students and compassion for the children in her charge. Unfortunately, Adams has also given the character a personal problem to cope with, which only confuses things and sets Corryn off on another of her soapbox speeches.

The problem with "Gidion's Knot" is that Adams tries to cram too much into it. In addition to her attack on the school system for squelching students, Corryn rails against those who she says use dead children to take away other people's rights. And there's a suggestion that Gidion's sexual orientation may have intensified his feelings of being an outsider.

Despite the overload in the text, Di Gregorio and Jenson keep the production dynamically on track, and director Shannon Musgrave adeptly positions them to reveal who is dominating in the alternating ebb and flow of their encounter.

Joshua Whittington's straightforward lighting and especially the muted school-day noises of Katelyn Limber's sound design vividly set the scene.

"Gidion's Knot" raises a thorny question: Should the unorthodox talents of students like Gidion be nurtured as his mother insists, or are they signs of more serious problems that may later push these individuals into antisocial, even psychopathic behavior? How should teachers handle these situations? What is their responsibility to their other students? Whatever else it does, Adams' play is bound to stimulate animated discussions on the way home from the theater. —

Knot while I'm around

"Gidion's Knot" is flawed, but impassioned performances by its two actors give powerful voice to the questions it raises.

When • Reviewed on Jan. 6; plays Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 p.m. through Jan. 21, with a matinee Saturday, Jan. 21, at 2 p.m.

Where • Dumke Black Box Theatre, Jewett Center for the Performing Arts, Westminster College, 1250 E. 1700 South, Salt Lake City

Tickets • $18; $15 for students and seniors; discounts for groups of 10 or more with advance notice; available at the door or http://www.pinnacleactingcompany.org

Running time • 80 minutes (no intermission)