THEATER REVIEW Dry Land

Elsewhere this week I review Taste, in which two men perversely bond over a blood sport with psychosexual manifestations. Just blocks away from Taste, Rivendell Theatre's Dry Land concerns two adolescent women who bond over blood—a harrowing DIY abortion—although without the same extreme psychosexual perversity.

Both plays, running about 90 minutes, feature graphic enactments of their respective bloody spectacles. It's kind of surprising to find plays with such parallels in Edgewater theaters at the same time. Still, the differences are greater than the similarities, as the young women in Dry Land embrace life while the men in Taste do not.

Florida high schoolers Amy and Ester are on the swimming team. Ester ( Jessica Ervin ) seems more committed to swimming, seeing a college athletic scholarship as an avenue to a larger life. Amy ( Bryce Gangel ) is beautiful, very popular and early-stage pregnant, although she's not as slutty as she pretends. Amy crosses clique lines to befriend Ester, needing a closed-mouth confidante who will assist her in DIY abortion efforts in the school locker room. Willfully manipulative, Amy humiliates Ester in front of others by loudly accusing Ester of lusting for her.

Halfway through the play, the focus switches from Amy to Ester. In the only scene in which the girls are apart, Ester connects with a college boy who's a longtime family friend. In her conversation with Victor ( Mark Farabee ), Ester learns things about herself and Amy. Returning home, Ester calmly assists Amy in her after-hours abortion in the locker room. An unconcerned janitor wordlessly cleans up the bloody mess they leave behind as if he's done it before, which may be the most shocking thing in the play. In the brief closing scenes, it's Ester who exhibits a new self-confidence and Amy who is left alone, tearful and trembling with loss and desire.

Playwright Ruby Rae Spiegel packs a huge amount into Dry Land, yet it never seems to be too much, and all of it has the ring of truth to my ears. Her pithy dialogue seems matter-of-fact and the vulgar teenaged moment—especially when Amy intentionally shocks with her sexual awareness—resonances and has nuances. It's brought to life by Hallie Gordon's skilled, incisive direction and the no-false-notes performances of Gangel and Ervin, who carefully articulate the emotional arcs of their characters, with the Ester/Victor scene as the pivot point. Amy isn't likeable—her self-loathing is revealed when she's drunk—and Gangel bravely follows the playwright's and Gordon's lead, allowing Ervin to grow before our eyes. The very capable Farabee offers pitch-perfect collegiate awkwardness in his one scene. Great set, too! You can smell the chlorine in Joanna Iwanicka's dead-on all-tile locker room, and hear towels snap.