An evocative memory play
Rating: 5
Driving the Body Back
KC Fringe Festival
Anyone looking for something a little bit off the beaten Fringe path, or who has a penchant for the literary side of theatre, really ought to go check out this quiet gem of a show.
Karan Founds-Benton begins the show holding a box, and throughout she picks photographs from it and lays them on the stage floor. Each photo begins a memory segment, which is also introduced by a short musical phrase, a different one for each segment. She repeats the phrase, in a lovely singing voice, several times in each segment as she talks about the person in the photograph. She is driving her mother's body back for burial, and thoughts of mortality hover in the background. The stories remind me of the stories of Marilynne Robinson (also of Iowa) - closely observed and intensely serious but not at all in a heavy way. Often quite funny, even. The show starts off a little slow but really weaves a spell once it gets going.
It has one more performance, today at 2:00. Well worth seeing.
read the review at KC Stage
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