Spellbound Launches World Premiere From Threshold Theater at the Phoenix Theater

Threshold Theater, a company dedicated to telling stories by and about the LGBTQ+ community launched the world premiere of Matthew A. Everett’s new play Spellbound at the Phoenix Theater in Uptown tonight. It’s an incisive work that begins with a high concept comedic idea and then uses it to explore the issue of consent in a whole new way. Grounded by strong performances and skillfully directed by Denzel Belin, this is a new work that has a lot to say and does it in a fresh and exciting way. It addresses outmoded perspectives by coming at them via a non traditional route. Allowing us to process something we know in a new way, reinforcing our collective values and allowing us to clear our minds of any lingering traces about consent and gender. We don’t need reminding of what is right and what is wrong, but we need to fully understand that those distinctions apply in every circumstance. This play imagines something that we assume can’t really happen, but treats it seriously and explores the ramifications that this fantasy would have on real people and relationships. It also acknowledges the darkness and selfishness that exists in everyone without excusing it.

The plot sets up what could have been a funny Three’s Company episode, if there was magic in that show. Micah and Auggie are best friends. Micah is gay, Auggie is straight, married to Sarah, who is pregnant with their first child. Jeffrey is Micah’s second best friend, he is gay and grieving the loss of his Grandmother, who was a witch. Jeffrey has made a potion from his Grandmothers grimoire (spell book) which he gives to Micah to give to Auggie, that he says will make is tongue turn colors. Micah thinks it will be funny to tease Auggie about his strange colored tongue and is assured it will only last for 24 hours. It’s really a love potion that has made Auggie fall in love with Micah, laughs do occur, but I assure you hilarity does not ensue. It becomes a race against time for Jeffrey and Sarah with the help of a metaphysical supply store owner to create an antidote before anyone does something they will forever regret.

Zakary Morton plays Micah and I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say his performance affected every molecule in my body. Morton has you liking Micah from the first scene, he plays the opening with the beats of a sitcom, but if you really watch and listen to what he is saying, he genuinely is concerned over what has happened, and feels guilty for his part in it. He thought he was playing a harmless prank on his best friend, now if he stops holding Auggie’s hand for a moment, Auggie will start to cry. As the play progresses Morton, above everyone else in the cast, breathes a sense of reality into every line of dialogues. We feel his guilt, we feel his affection, we feel his fear and his pain and we believe every moment. At the end, he’s left devastated but we are given hope that everyone will heal and who knows what will happen, but the romantic in me wants to believe that Micah and Duncan, played very sweetly and with perceptive understanding by Xae Copeland, will get together. Auggie is played by Leor Benjamin who finds just the right moments to make eyes at Micah, or put a head on his shoulder for comic emphasis, but his truest moments are when he’s teaching Micah how to play a song his written for him on his guitar. And when Morton sings that song for Duncan, your heart heals a little bit. Keira Kowal Jett is good as Sarah, but she does play her a little too collected and controlled, she’s good at being the voice of reason, but I’d like her to have gone a little bigger when confronting Jeffrey, I’d like to see her lose it occasionally, then pull herself back together to accomplish what needs to be done. David Schlosser as Jeffrey is a piece of work, he perfectly captures that guy who doesn’t have many friends because he’s basically missing that part of a human being that gets it.

There are nice touches sprinkled throughout the production, in the opening scenes we have Auggie unable to not hold hands with Micah, we transition to flashback scenes of Auggie and Sarah with the transition occurring by Micah handing Auggie’s hand off to Sarah and then back again when we come back to the present. It’s a very cinematic transition and a nice detail. The set and prop designs by Jenna Mady are effective, giving us the bed that Micah and Auggie will have to share while they wait for the Supply shop to open in the morning. and the Supply shop portion of the stage is nicely detailed. The lighting design by Jack Hinz solidly assists with scene changes by shifting the focus to different areas of the stage, at times blacking out the rest while at others allowing us to see how the characters who are not the focus, here as well Morton shines in his performance.

Spellbound runs through May 3rd at the Phoenix Theater in Uptown. For more information and to purchase tickets go to https://www.thresholdtheatermpls.com/#/

Now more than ever in the wake of the most recent election and the hailstorm of stupidity and hate it has unleashed, theater companies need you and we need them. Buy tickets to shows, go out and support work that reflects diversity and inclusiveness. Donate to your favorite theater companies, don’t wait until they are on the brink of shutting down. We all need to stand up and fight for our theaters whose funding is under attack for promoting inclusion, equality and diversity. In short, theaters are being threatened for sharing stories that reflect our countries cultural and racial diversity.

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