SCARED OF DEMONS
Gillarlaine Theatre Company
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Scared of Demons might be viewed as an exploration of our culture’s bias against sex, a bias so deeply internalized by this little girl, as well as by her fundamentalist family and teachers, that she perceives the natural desire to touch herself and give herself pleasure as a satanic force. In her mind, a demon repeatedly tries to force a crucifix between her legs.
But Steffens-Moran’s language defies such a neat metaphorical interpretation. The world he creates is one of extremes and absolutes. The only advice the little girl gets, from a variety of sources, is to trust Jesus. But this is the same Jesus that demons tell her wants to violate her. The playwright unrelentingly portrays a conflict that occurs, not in the world of psychology, but in the world of good and evil.
Director Mark A. Fossen and his ten-person cast take a very different approach to Len Jenkin’s Dark Ride, with much less success. Of course, Jenkin’s play is a more complicated and challenging work than Scared of Demons. Dark Ride is exactly that: a harrowing journey through a playwright’s bewilderingly surreal imagination. Jenkin’s world is one of endless synchronicity, in which significant elements appear in unrelated worlds and characters come together under the most unlikely of circumstances.
