Playwright: Nicola McCartney. At: Filament Ensemble, 4041 N. Milwaukee Ave. Tickets: 1-773-270-1660; www.filamenttheatre.org; $20. Runs through: June 8 only
Lifeboat isn't a stage adaptation of the Alfred Hitchcock film of the same name, although the situations are parallel: a Nazi U-boat torpedoes a ship and the survivors wait for/hope for rescue.
In this case, it's 1940 and adolescent girls Beth Cummings ( Mara Dale ) and Bess Walder ( Molly Bunder ) cling to an overturned lifeboat in the North Atlantic as a night, a day and another night pass. Despite the dire situation, this is a surprisingly sweet two-character play because the focus is not on their terrible circumstances but on who they are, what their lives have been and their sense of discovery. Like many English children during World War II, they are being sent to Canada for safety and even the most harrowing events can be adventures. I had a theater teacher and dear friend who was 5 years old during the London blitz. His family had two houses blown to bits over their heads, and he thought it was the most exciting thing in the world.
As drawn by author Nicola McCartney, Beth and Bess are unexceptional middle-class girls, but appealing nonetheless: observant, bright, spontaneous and caring with dreams of being performers and both crazy for that recent hit film, The Wizard of Oz. They first meet on the train taking them to their ship in Liverpool, but they quickly become fast friends. Breaking the fourth wall to narrate directly to the audience, they relate details and events of their livesbefore and after the shipwreckand introduce us to family members, each performer playing all the characters in the other's life from Bess's kid brother to Beth's mother to the Indian ship steward who address them as "Little Madame" and saves their lives. A touch slow at first as they deal with all the expository material, this 70-minute show soon gains critical mass and appeal. Like Our Town, its emotional pull is in understanding how very precious the most ordinary details of life can be, and the value of friendship.
I enjoyed the work of Bunder and Dale very much. As directed by Julie Ritchey they avoid becoming too precious and never flag in their focus and energy as they scamper about scenic designer Andrew Marchetti's seemingly random ( but not ) jumble of furniture, old radios, suitcases and planking. At various moments, upside-down chairs or a small table become the lifeboat to which the girls so desperately cling. It's all relatively simple and quite effective.
This was my first visit to Filament's still-new home in Portage Park. It's a vast unfinished space with high ceilings and no fixed stage. It should allow the troupe to exercise numerous flights of theatrical fancy as it grows into the ample square footage.