Hudes's 'Water by the Spoonful' at the Arden

The first play in this trilogy presented Elliot, his father, and Elliot’s abuelo (grandfather) — all of whom fought in wars — and a woman identified as Elliot's mother. Issues among the men were explored deeply. Yet in Water by the Spoonful no mention is made of any father until late in the second act, which is a curious omission. Another puzzlement is that now, in this newer play, we learn the woman was not his mother at all, but his aunt.

Clearly, one of the playwright's techniques is the intentional creation of bafflement. Hiding identities is one of the key signatures of her opus. And the theme is a search for compassion.

Music is a leitmotif in Hudes’s trilogy. In this play, Yaz lectures her class — and the audience — about the importance of dissonance in music, and she explains how John Coltrane used dissonance as a gateway to resolution before he made “ugliness” (Yaz’s word) an end in itself.

This play stresses dissonance, introducing four crackhead junkies who repeatedly argue with one another. They occupy most of the stage time, and their abrasiveness gets on our nerves until, in the second act, we learn the link between these people and Elliot’s family.

As Water opens, he and his cousin discuss the failing health of Elliot’s aunt. Then we are transported into what seems like a different world: an internet chat room for druggies presided over by a woman who calls herself Haikumom. (All of these characters use handles, hiding their real names.) This mother-figure turns out to be Elliot’s real mom; in Act II we learn that her real name is Odessa, and she once saved Elliot’s life, when he was feverish, by following doctor’s instructions to feed him one spoonful of water every five minutes. She failed to do the same for Elliot’s little sister, who died of dehydration while Odessa was on drugs. After that tragedy, Odessa totally distanced herself from her family. She tentatively reconnects when she reads of the aunt/mom’s death in the newspaper.

Online counterpoint

The exchanges among the members of the chat room remind me of Patrick Marber’s play Closer, about sexual mating, which I saw at the National Theatre in London and at the Arden. (My review is here.) The highlight of that play was a cyberspace chat between two men — one of them pretending he's a sex-starved American woman — with both actors sitting at their computer terminals at opposite ends of the stage, below large screens that revealed the contents of their internet conversation.

In Water By the Spoonful, however, the Internet chatter is spoken. Two of the members of this web group contrast with each other. Clayton (Brian Anthony Wilson) is a middle-aged IRS worker estranged from his son and grandchildren, while Madeleine (Bi Jean Ngo), who calls herself Orangutan, is a young woman who travels to Japan where she was born before being adopted by an American family. She proactively plans to seek her birth parents, while Clayton avoids all confrontations. She badgers him until he, surprisingly, flies to Japan to join her.

John (Kevin Bergen) is a wealthy Main Liner who posts about how his weekends-only addiction is interfering with his otherwise comfortable married life. Madeleine berates him until he admits that he’s a full-out cocaine addict. In the end, John becomes a caregiver for Odessa.

Hudes’s elegant use of language helps compensate for some contrivance in the plotting. And she provides a beautiful metaphor of water in a Puerto Rico rain forest as a healing agent.

Intimacy lost

Batista was excellent as Elliot, putting on a brave front and sublimating his pain. Maia DeSanti as Yaz appeared brainy and a bit detached as she reconnected with the family and neighborhood from which she had distanced herself. Karina Arroyave displayed considerable acting ability as Odessa, but her casting is problematic. Both her son and her niece are tall; Arroyave is tiny. Of course there have been short mothers who give birth to tall kids but, on stage, appearance is crucial. She also appeared too young to be Elliot's mother — and these disparities created unnecessary cognitive dissonance. Was this an intentional choice, aimed at surprising the audience? Or was it a casting error?

Wilson impressively used his acting skills to expose his character’s vulnerable core. His emotional journey was touching. Ngo overplayed her character’s nagging side; I wouldn’t have traveled across town to meet that woman, let alone to Japan. Bergen conveyed a proper degree of elitism to contrast with his eventual nurturing behavior. Turhan Caylak added to the play’s mystery with his portrayal of a menacing Iraqi who reappears in Elliot’s imagination.

A simple set included a mural that provided just a hint of Philadelphia. Otherwise, it seemed to be the interior of a computer; rather cold, with platforms creating an expanse of separation between groups of characters.

This is an intimate play, and the Arden wisely chose to put it into the smaller of its two theaters. Unfortunately, the set has a flat back, no sides and not even a hint of a ceiling; in short, no reflecting surfaces to bounce the sound out into the hall. Some of the actors projected strongly enough to have impact even when they faced away from the audience. Others did not, and some important words were lost.