Let’s Hear it For Some Girls

Posted by Nick Martinez in Performing Arts

Lindsay, played by senior Danielle Reddick, is an older seductress, plays Guy played by Jade Scott Lewis to get revenge on behalf of her Husband. Photo by Luke E. Montavon/The Jackalope

Neil Labute’s Some Girl(s), opened Oct. 17,  presents a marked script improvement over PAD’s previous show The Cave Dwellers, and boasts strong performances from its four female leads.

From right, Tristine Henderson (Sam) the overwhelmed and increasingly desparate mom still holds a grudge 20 years later. Photo by Luke E. Montavon/The Jackalope

Senior Jade Scott Lewis does an affable job as Guy, a struggling writer on an apology tour to four former ex-girlfriends, before his upcoming nuptials. Lewis is perfectly cast as the bumbling heartbreaker, equally selling the charm to win women over, as well as the selfish streak to ruin them. Again, Lewis does a great job as the scoundrel Guy, but the real stars of the show are his former lovers, all vulnerable in their own ways, and with enough hurt that reveals more about Guy than Guy ever could.

Left, Senior Shenyse Harris (Tyler), the free spirit who didn’t leave Senior Jade Scott Lewis (Guy) with a bad taste in his mouth. Photo by Luke E. Montavon/The Jackalope

The story is told in four scenes, each with Guy and one of his ex-girlfriends as the onlycharacters in the scene. Two emotionally wrought scenes bookend the show, but the middle two play as a bizarre psycho-sexual power struggle. Senior Shenyse Harris plays Tyler, an art school free spirit who is the only girl Guy didn’t leave with a permanent scar. Harris imbues what could have been yet another slut caricature with confidence and hints at a deeper motive that she and Guy may share.

Each girl is given roughly sketched lives outside the scenes, but emotional scars run deep, perhaps none more so than suburban housewife Sam, played by junior Tristine Henderson. Sam and Guy’s relationship was high school puppy love, a concept likely still fresh in the mind of many of the SFUAD audience members. Henderson ably portrays the stretched-thin mom, and her increasing desperation and past digging leads to great tragicomedy.

Senior Shelby Gray (Bobbi) is sure to bring tears to your eyes in her highly emotional performance. Photo by Luke E. Montavon/The Jackalope

The show itself ends on a grand joke, one I won’t spoil, but the final scene is heartbreaking in its escalation. Bobbi, played by senior Shelby Gray, has the best chemistry for Guy, and the reunion produces unfortunate revelations. Each character, at one point or another, gets to play the victim, but Grey’s Bobbi refuses to play Guy’s role. Her Bobbi is smart, and the most put-together of the other women, but her confrontation with her past produces emptying tear ducts, and not just for the character. Not me, of course, I just had something in my eye.

PAD has been killing it this semester, and Some Girl(s) is a major reason why.