One of the first thing we see in Aurora, the latest bright spark of imagination from writer Chris Fontanes and director Trace Turner of Bottle Alley, is a woman alone, looking wistfully out at the universe, and in the macro, this is what we will experience for the duration. The story of a lost soul who just may have come from the stars on her 30th Birthday, waiting to finally hear from her extraterrestrial family, it in many ways examines the loneliness of our own existence in the cosmos, and the ways in which we try to find connection, whether it be romantic, sexual, emotional, or otherwise.
I saw Aurora in a liminal time, that space in time where you smell the petrichor in the air but the clouds refuse to let loose, and it felt fitting, as Aurora seems to exist in these liminal spaces itself. Aurora is a piece full of pining, longing, and waiting, full of things that might happen, might have happened, almost happen; things that are just missed by a hair, misunderstandings, misinterpretations. It’s a play that happens in those quiet moments between the landmark ones, where we meet people who might be the most important people in our lives, or may just be a passing diversion, but we won’t realize which until it’s perhaps too late. You might think that this makes the work less interesting, that it lacks action or momentum, but the tension this cast and crew create in these moments of longing is nothing short of palpable.
One of the remarkable elements of Aurora is how refreshingly emotionally internal it all is. Though it’s never short of intriguing to take in, most of the action of the piece comes from the small, quiet interactions between its characters, intimate moments of connection between two strangers, or the tenderness of two almost lovers realizing they may never have the chance to truly join together. Fontanes and Turner trust both their actors to convey the deeper truths of these viscerous actions, and their audience to comprehend the subtle nuance of the (at times literal) dance on display, a subtlety that is at times missing from this type of drama.
My first introduction to Rosemary McGraw was this time last year in Bottle Alley’s Wraith Radio, where she stood out as one of the show’s highlights, but nothing could have prepared me for the depths she would delve here. There is barely a moment where she isn’t on stage, but she doesn’t command it, or our attention, so much as relish in the joy of its existence. There’s a freedom and a comfort that McGraw takes in the character of Aurora, insomuch that one couldn’t imagine it being played by another actor. McGraw simply is Aurora, and there’s no reason to question it. Through her delicate and undaunted performance, she creates a universe for us to inhabit for those painfully brief few minutes of the play’s running time, and I found myself saddened when I finally had to leave.
The supporting actors of Aurora are not so much planets orbiting Rosemary’s title character, but more comets bursting in and out of their atmosphere: creating a bright flash with their entrance, forming beautiful moments of wonder, until fading into the night. Cassandra DeFreitas wanders into Aurora’s world as Andi, co-worker, and perhaps more, of our lead, as if she had always been there, and DeFreitas carries herself with such a casual comfort that we never doubt their connection. On the other side of the coin, Bonnie Lambert’s Anne appears on the scene like a bolt from the blue, bringing with her a fascinating sense of otherness. We’re meant to question her intentions here, and Lambert plays the character in a slightly removed manner that maintains the heart, while also feeling slightly askew.
It could be said that the edges of Aurora are a bit too loose, and it doesn’t so much end as dissipate, as if we were given a window to another world that had to close, perhaps before its time. I would have loved to spend more time in the universe that Fontanes, Turner, and their cast and crew have created, but that’s hardly a knock against them. Like the best things in life, the time spent with Aurora was well worth the sorrow of having to leave it, and its an experience that will linger in my mind for some time to come.
Aurora is playing through May 19th at the Paper Plate Gallery. For more information, please visit bottlealleytheatre.com
Photos courtesy of @halloweenpartyart
AUSTIN ARTS WATCH 