Jonah is sweet, awkward, inquisitive, respectful and clearly smitten β the sort of boy you might want for a first love if you were Ana, a scholarship student at a boarding school. After he walks her to her dorm, she lifts her shirt over her head, flashing him. Ana never leaves the stage, but after each blitz of light one of three male characters appears on stage with her, then abruptly disappears, and reappears later.
In her scenes with Jonah Hagan Oliveras Beans captures the capriciousness and high spirits of adolescence. But when she is with Danny Samuel Henry Levine , she is patient, comfortable, defensive, while Danny is volatile, distrustful, needy. In her later scenes with Steven John Zdrojeski , Ana is guarded and reflective while Steven is attentive, respectful, in his own way clearly smitten. Eventually we piece together the basic story. Her stepfather was horribly abusive, more to Danny than to Ana, but Danny was protective of his stepsister, and helped both of them escape.
Neither escaped unharmed. I hesitate to elaborate further, since so much of the energy that the playwright puts into the play is on the gradual unfolding of the story, told theatrically.
Part of the ambiguity is the timeline. There are no external cues that orient us to time and place β a change in the set; costume or makeup changes; a title card.
Luckily, its cast goes a long way toward keeping the play grounded. Samuel Henry. Which brings us to Hagan Oliveras, the relative newcomer in the quartet of fine actors. Steven is drawn to Ana, he says, because of how moved he was by her book.
