The Permanent Night
TIME OUT REVIEW...***** 5 Stars
Reviewed by Quinn Marquardt
Friday 15 August 2008

***** (five stars) Set in the Upper East Side during the 2003 blackout, The Permanent Night focuses on the tumultuous relationship between Spencer and his wife, Heather, as they wait in their darkened apartment for his troubled little sister to arrive. A deeply satisfying emotional roller coaster, with peaks of gut-wrenching laughter and lows that bring you close to tears, The Permanent Night bridges the harsh realities of a helter-skelter world with the intimately personal struggles of coping with death, betrayal and shame. “Everything that happens to you leaves an indelible mark—a tattoo, if you will,” notes playwright Kari Bentley-Quinn in the program, but her play more intriguingly suggests that impermanence gives life its value and meaning. (The inseparability of love and loss empowers each of them: If something lasts forever, can it still be precious?) Are the intoxicating effects of this play indelible? It’s too early to say, but they stay with you long after the closing scene.

The Permanent Night

reviewed by Josephine Cashman

Aug 9, 2008

It's the New York blackout of 2003, and Spencer and his wife Heather are waiting for his wayward sister Jane to arrive so they can drive out to Montauk to see their mother. Spencer and Heather have a deceptively charming, shallow, and perfect life, complete with high social standing and wealth. As the lights go out, Spencer and Heather shine their flashlights and candles on the wreck of their marriage, and Jane flirts with a handsome young law student. Before the lights come back on, everyone has changed and nothing can ever be the same.

Written by Kari Bentley-Quinn, directed by Heather Arnson, and produced by Maria Romina Talabucon, this original play is having its theatrical debut at FringeNYC, and it is a surprisingly honest and appealing new work. After a slow start, the first act is well-paced and darkly comical as tensions and betrayals come into view, but the second act still feels a bit rough and unfinished. Nevertheless, the characters Bentley-Quinn has created are vibrant, flawed, and fully realized.

The actors are all quite good, and Kat Garson as Jane and Vina Less as her sister-in-law Heather do marvelous work as they struggle with their secrets and their shame, and the failings that have left their marks on them, even as they work to get past them. Their relationships with the ambitious and cocky Spencer (Dave Beagle) and sweetly straightforward Justin (Cory Whitfield) are taut, filled with hurt and betrayal, but also love and hope, and the possible specter of forgiveness.

The lighting design by Teresa Hull is amazing, using flashlights and candles to cast both shadows and light that is eerie and makes the audience truly feel that they are in a blackout. Arnson works with her actors well, but she could have used the stage a little more inventively, and the actors did not need to mime opening and closing the apartment door; the unnecessary action did not serve the play and indeed took away some of the punch of the dramatic action.

One of the pleasures of FringeNYC is discovering new plays. I look forward to seeing Bentley-Quinn further develop and refine The Permanent Night, as it packs an emotional and gently humorous wallop.

Written/created by: Kari Bentley-Quinn Directed by Heather Arnson Presented by Imago Film Productions, Inc.