In Lee Blessing's "A Body of Water," a couple wake one morning to find themselves naked in the bedroom of a lake house which may or may not be theirs, unable to recall who they are or how they came to be there.
This absurd conceit is made hilarious when the man, played by Michael Cristofer, suggests that they examine each other's bodies for birthmarks, which could spark some memory of their identities. Christine Lahti, as his (possible) wife, responds with the mockery of a sexless sitcom star, pulling out a pair of kitchen tongs to examine his genitals and crying, "You don't expect me to touch it, do you?"
But we are not allowed to linger on this tragicomic moment for long. Blessing avoids what could be a ninety-minute enactment of the Worst Morning-After Ever with the sudden entrance of Wren (Laura Odeh), who may or may not be their lawyer, daughter, or caretaker, and who regards the pair with nothing but latent bitchiness. She seems simultaneously appalled by and in enjoyment of their dependence on her, coyly refusing to answer the couple's repeated question: how did this happen to us?
It's almost disappointing when Wren instead offers their names--Avis and Moss--and the information that they are married, and may be guilty of the murder of their eleven-year-old daughter. Or may not be. One psychological crisis cedes to the next in a play that, for all its indebtedness to European existentialism, is solidly grounded by a committed effort to demand meaningful answers from its constructed world. Each plot twist and revelation upends the last grasp the central characters thought they had on reality (at one point, Wren actually separates them and convinces them they have been imagining each other's presence), yet neither Moss nor Avis ever gives up on the attempt to understand what happened to them.
And unlike the ambivalent characters of Pinter or Beckett, they're not generalities or theoretical abstractions, but individuals who, despite an absence of back story, are each distinguished by discrete and uniquely compelling motives--Moss thinks Avis is lovely, while Avis seems strangely repelled by him--as well as by their complex reactions to the other's anxiety and sexuality. The actors deserve a good deal of credit for pulling this off. Lahti in particular provides Avis with just enough toughness so that her annoyed reactions to Moss's repeated sexual advances don't come off as scared or frigid, but human.
For example, when Moss pretends to remember having had sex with her the night before--arguing that life will be more bearable if they make believe that they have happy memories--Avis says, "You tell me all these things, but I don't feel it." Throughout the play she insists, "I don't feel you," or, to Wren, "If you were my daughter, I would feel it." It's as if for her intimacy can only exist after a lifetime of shared moments, and she may never stop thinking of Moss and Wren as strangers.
With each production, the final scene of the play has changed slightly, but the mystery of the characters' identities is never fully resolved. It's always frustrating when the answer is that there is no answer, but, whether Wren is a daughter or merely a burned-out caretaker, "A Body of Water" is an engaging portrait of a family struggling to survive the traumatic loss of its own collective history.
"A Body of Water" is playing at 59E59 Theater through November 16th.