The Art of Longing

There's at least one thing we long “to do, to feel, to be” in life that we think will make our life extraordinary. Ovation Theatre Company explores these ideas and how they inform our decisions in their first-time Fringe entry, The Art of Longing.

The production, written by eight of the Ovation crew, features four main characters and their individual paths to pursuing their wishes. Two couples, Alivia and Harrison (Devon Campailla and Brandon Burton) and Salisha and Brock (Amy Harpring and Jason Burgess), are young, well-meaning and middle-class. We see their longing transform through the course of the hour-long performance, each in their own individual ways — whether it’s a hunger for independence, leisure time, a better body, purpose, a voice or the ability to fix things — which in turn changes the person each has become.

Alivia, for example, begins the piece with her declaration of wanting to try a new salad dressing (she’s only had Italian all of her life), because, she believes, one’s choice of salad dressing is indicative of the life she leads. The fact that she yearns for (common) bleu cheese is another conversation altogether. But to her, it represents excitement.

Brock’s decision to turn an evangelical church to fulfill his “mission statement” is a little obvious, but Burgess delivers his character’s optimism wholeheartedly. Funnily enough, Brock changes his mission to become a part of a search-and-rescue team.

Salisha, a busy mother of two, finds her goals manifest themselves in a desire to “get dirty” — first in yard work and then in becoming a boozed-up biker chick. And Harrison conquers his battle with body image, but only through stifling his wife Alivia’s individuality.

Also, we see that things wanted sometimes aren’t at all what’s needed, and The Art of Longing is all the better for it. Some of the logistics about this show don’t quite work — like the 1950s-era husband-and-wife banter scene, with TV show music that sounds like something from Leave It to Beaver (I can see canned audience laughter serving its purpose), and at points the plot is repetitive.

Nevertheless, comedy is provided courtesy of the bumbling Burgess and Kyle Nunn, who plays various roles: a snarky community center desk clerk, Southern lawn boy and an egomaniacal bachelor. What does the audience leave longing for? Who knows? A salad, for sure. Grade: B-

— Jessica Canterbury