MARGARET (PERCHING)
Gradually, however, Margaret begins to acknowledge the desires that make her existence so galling: she fantasizes about Joy “naked in a bowl of fruit salad,” visits a women’s bar and enjoys the attention she attracts there, and masturbates while pretending that two of her female dolls are getting married. After Joy publicly declares her claim on the passive Matt–whom Margaret is all too happy to relinquish–Margaret considers suicide but instead spends the summer in northern California, where she has her first lesbian affair. Returning that winter to her stifling home Margaret resumes her suffering: “[She] kind of hoped it would get worse, but it didn’t. The sameness of the pain made her more and more insane.”
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PerformInk cited Thunder Road Ensemble as their “pick of the season,” praising the company’s goal: “telling American stories,” a press release states, “that dramatize the romantic character of America–the struggle to maintain individuality.” That lofty goal is certainly present in Margaret (Perching), but it’s been put to naught by something as simple as bad acoustics.
