From left: Ryan King is Ragged Man, Julia Greer plays Daughter, and Jessica Frey is Recruiter Lady in Kallan Dana’s Racecar Racecar Racecar.
Kallan Dana’s new play Racecar Racecar Racecar is an original tale of a daughter-dad adventure in which character is tested, quite literally, if preposterously, during a cross-country road trip. Directed by Sarah Blush, and making its world premiere at A.R.T/New York Theatres, this surreal one-act play packs an emotional punch.
King, as Handsome Man, carries Camila Canó-Flavià, as Little Girl, in Racecar Racecar Racecar.
Palindromes—a word, phrase, or sentence that reads the same frontwards and backwards—are key to Dana’s new work. Whether it is the triple palindrome of the title, words like “mom,” “dad,” “deified,” or the more complex palindrome “Did Hannah see bees? Hannah did,” they pop up everywhere. In addition to Dad and Daughter having long used palindromes as a driving game to pass the time, the play’s structure is palindromic, with its dual protagonists first moving in a westerly and then an easterly direction.
The action takes place on Brittany Vasta’s Spartan set, a square pit painted tangerine that serves as a car, highway, and liminal space where anything can happen. The trip’s ostensible purpose is for Dad to clean out his storage unit in Sacramento, Calif., before Christmas. But on a deeper level it seems that both Daughter and Dad are simply attempting to reconnect with each other and make some sense of their damaged lives. Both of them appear to have difficulty in sustaining meaningful relationships: Dad is divorced and occasionally dates; Daughter is single, but she seems to have had a number of toxic relationships with former boyfriends. But since Dad and Daughter often lie to each other, it’s almost impossible to know the truth.
Racecar is chockful of rough episodes and peculiar characters. Dad and Daughter have three car accidents during their odyssey; Dad goes to a drive through at a Wendy’s restaurant in Salt Lake City, where he flirts with a waitress who yearns to have a child (“I’m looking for someone to get me pregnant so I can regurgitate my soul into my child and live forever.”)
The script juxtaposes the serious with the silly, as Dana alternates dream logic with references to real-life horror stories. Perhaps the most chilling one mentioned is the case of Ariel Castro, the Cleveland native who imprisoned three women for more than a decade in his home. Later on, this grim event is echoed in a surreal party scene, in which Daughter is taken hostage by a number of characters who insult her and then turn her into a puppet-like version of herself. To add insult to injury, the character Handsome Man bluntly tells Daughter what he thinks of her:
Sometimes I feel like you’re three different people, four different, five different, endless different people. I can’t grip on to where the real you is.
Greer as Daughter faces off with Ryan King as Raggedy Man. Photographs by Travis Emery Hackett.
Racecar, although it steers clear of gooey sentimentality, brings fresh definition to the dysfunctional family today. Consider when Daughter emits a cri de coeur to Pretty Lady (Jessica Frey), confessing how much she wants to connect to her sisters and Mom for Christmas; she equally hopes that her sisters will show compassion and offer forgiveness to their emotionally isolated and physically ailing father and that her mother will act in the same spirit. Or, as Daughter tersely puts it, “He’s suffering. He needs family. He’s a person. He’s a person deserving of love.”
What adds muscle to the production is the crisp acting of the entire ensemble. Julia Greer plays the Daughter with simplicity and grace. Bruce McKenzie rightly interprets Dad as a lonely divorcé who’s trying to re-establish a meaningful connection with one of his adult daughters and perhaps find a new sweetheart to boot. The versatile Ryan King manages to pull off playing both the mysterious Ragged Man and sinister Handsome Man with ease. Camila Canó- Flaviá, as the Sphinx-like Little Girl, proves that facial expressions and silence have their own eloquence. Jessica Frey brings in a dash of the absurd with her portrayal of the waitress at Wendy’s who’s also named Wendy.
Stagehands employ a low-tech system for displaying the names of each state during the show. They simply shine their flashlights through various cutouts and the state’s name is then projected on a screen. Besides these homespun projections, Cha See and Bev Fremin’s lighting effectively washes over the performing space, illuminating each surreal scene and the emotionality of the characters.
Racecar is a slippery play. The principal characters Dad and Daughter are as hard to pin down as butterflies. In spite of its psychological rawness and often graphic language, Racecar is a ride worth taking.
The Hearth production of Racecar Racecar Racecar at A.R.T./New York Theatres (502 W. 53rd St.) through Dec. 22. Evening performances are 7:30 p.m. Monday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday; matinees are at 2 p.m. Sunday. An extra performance is scheduled at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 18. For more information, visit artnewyork.org.
Playwright: Kallan Dana
Director: Sarah Blush
Set: Brittany Vasta
Costumes: Normandy Sherwood
Lighting: Cha See
Sound: John Gasper
