The Ascension of Carlotta

Some shows just make you want to pull for them. That’s the case with this tidy little production at Berwyn’s brand-new 16th Street Theater. We love seeing the new work of local playwrights; we love the monumental effort of artistic director Filmer to launch this jewel-box playhouse in the ’burbs; and if we don’t one-hundred percent love the play, we can at least applaud it as a harbinger of better things to come.

The main fault lies with Dunne’s script, which aspires to whimsical wisdom but never quite takes off. Ascension tells the story of Alice, born Carlotta, a Berwyn girl who has her eyes opened to life’s possibilities by a would-be bandit, Romeo. True love and attempted robbery ensue. No doubt, Filmer chose the play because of its local resonance—Berwyn here stands in for a mundane, unfulfilled life—but in Dunne’s hands, the metaphor is clumsily and relentlessly hit home (“I am Berwyn,” the heroine eventually declares). Ditto for Dunne’s dialogue, which attempts to lift the seen-it-before situation with overblown poetics and off-beat dialogue, but frequently comes off as stilted and contrived.

Still, this production has its charms: Filmer injects life with some truly inspired comic timing and brisk staging, and her cast is appealing, particularly Sobel as meek Alice. The director could use a gentler hand with some of the technical elements—music and sound effects are particularly oppressive—but through most of the production she keeps a light touch that helps sell the story despite its shortcomings.