Marina Nebro: Arts and Culture

Water by the Spoonful – a Second Stage Theatre Production

Thanks to my lovely friend Alyssa Blumenthal who applied for an internship through TDF (Theatre Development Fund) to Second Stage Theatre, I was able to see the Quiara Alegria Hudes (In The Heights) Pulitzer Prize winning play Water by the Spoonful for absolutely no cost at all – except for the $7.61 we split at Schnippers pre-show.

Like usual, I went to this play stone cold. I half-heartedly read the synopsis online thinking to myself, “it doesn’t matter what the show is, it’s a great opportunity to go and see theatre with a friend.” Both Alyssa and I agreed it was one of those intense plays. I said, “that’s what drug plays usually are – intense.” One of the main themes of the story is drug use – specifically crack and prescription drugs.

I’m going to try to edit myself here, as I have tried in other posts recently. I tend to spell out the entire synopsis, which might be interesting to some, but leaves nothing for the imagination and gets me burnt out to the point where I don’t feel like actually voicing my opinions. So here is the plot put simply:

There are two story lines that converge at the end of act one: the story of a war veteran Elliot Ortiz (Armando Riesco), honorably discharged from the Iraq war due to leg injury, who fights with the fact that his aunt/adoptive mother has just died, and the story of crack addicts who find solace in the company of fellow addicts in an online forum. Each of these plot lines contain multiple characters, and subplots, but I believe that the fact that they converged was most meaningful.

Throughout the entire play, the characters seem awfully alone. Elliot struggles internally with his traumatic war experiences, his cousin Yaz (Zabryna Guevara) struggles with the idea that her life isn’t the way she had planned it, and Odessa (Liza Colon-Zayas), Chutes and Ladders (Frankie Faison), Orangutan (Sue Jean Kim), and Fountainhead (Bill Heck) all deal with their addiction to crack. But all of these struggles – subplots – ultimately bring the characters together. In the end, Orangutan and Chutes and Ladders (obviously usernames on the support forum), meet up in Japan and become “real life” friends. Fountainhead takes care of Odessa after her overdose, ultimately bringing them together and helping him to overcome his addiction. Elliot and his cousin Yaz come to an understanding at the end. Everything converges; everyone comes together and has the one-on-one human contact that was missing before.

Though I am definitely not a drug user, and on that level I couldn’t identify with the characters, I found the theme of human contact (something that Alyssa and I agreed was a present yet subtle undertone of the entire piece) very relevant and relatable. Personally, I am not a foreigner to online forums and online friendships, and the creation of bonds through characters typed on a screen is something so real for the people involved. It is truly surreal that first time when two “face strangers” (my new made up word!) meet. If anything, beyond the drug addiction and family issues that this play covers, I think that Hudes is really trying to emphasize the importance of face-to-face contact – real life friendships. Man is a naturally social creature, and when he doesn’t interact with fellow man, things go wrong. We need to learn to be there for each other.

Water By The Spoonful
Second Stage Theatre
December 16, 2012
7:00PM

Marina B. Nebro