‘Naked’ play to premiere at BPP

After being delayed nearly a month because of an illness in the cast, Canadian playwright Lynda Martens’ “Naked in the Kitchen” will premiere tomorrow at the Bloomington Playwrights Project.

Winner of the 2009-10 Season Reva Shiner National Full-Length Playwriting Contest, “Naked in the Kitchen” was selected as the best play from the submissions. 

The Play runs 8 p.m today through Sunday until Nov. 21 and 2 p.m. Nov.  at the Bloomington Playwrights Project, 107 W. Ninth St.Tickets are available at the Buskirk-Chumley Box Office or online at buskirkchumley.org. Tickets are $18 for general admission and $15 for students and seniors, or a $5 student rush ticket will be available five minutes before showtime.

“We want to create a buzz for every show we do, but what’s special about this show is that it’s the Reva Shiner play,” said Chad Rabinovitz, the BPP’s new artistic director.

“We get submissions from all over the world and anywhere between 150 and 300 scripts each year and spend at least an hour a day for an entire year to find the best in the country.”

“Naked in the Kitchen” captures a family in transition and underlying turmoil.

With their son Michael about to leave for college, Beth and Charlie face a new way of life without him on Michael’s five-year anniversary of being cancer-free. They are unaware that he is withholding a secret.

“I think it’s very smart,” director Holly Holbrook said. “There’s a lot of great humor, even though it deals with some pretty heavy stuff.”

BPP veteran Jeff Stone, who plays Charlie, said he can easily identify with the play and its family themes.

“It’s so much more a slice of very familiar life, as opposed to really stepping into someone else’s shoes or situation,” he said. 

The cast is rounded out by Meredith Mills as Beth, Gabriel Wallace as Michael and Kyle Hendricks as Michael’s friend Kevin.

Hendricks, a senior, said he believes that the family perspective of the show is beneficial even to college students.

“I think it’s a really good piece for the college community that we’re in,” Hendricks said. “I think the snapshots of this show, with and without the kids, paint of very real picture of parenting, marriage and things that, as a selfish teenager heading off to college, you don’t really think about.”

Mills agreed with Hendricks and Stone that audience members can connect to the play, while offering a specific perspective through her character.

“I think it’s really well written and easily accessible to the audience,” she said. “It’s almost a midlife crisis for Beth because she hasn’t been getting the attention sexually from her husband and her son is going off to college. She sort of loses her sense of emotional stability.” 

Ravonovitz believes that drama like Beth’s is evident throughout the play, and keeps it moving forward and entertaining throughout. 

“The play tells a great story that’s compelling and interesting from beginning to end,” he said. “This is the kind of play that builds to the final moment. There’s not that lull - it just keeps going up to the moment where you have that final resolution.” 
 
Yet there is no succinct resolution, instead leaving the audience with an ambiguous ending open to interpretation. 

“The play leaves as many questions as it does answer them,” Rabinovitz said. “That, to me, is a good play – something that leaves you thinking more.”