Finding Fun At An Awkward Wake: “Captivated Chapter 2: Victoria” (The NoPro Review)

by Anthony Robinson
Anthony Robinson
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August 23, 2018
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4 min read

Funerals and wakes are awkward places. They’re overflowing with difficult, and often time confusing emotions: pain, anger, and varying degrees of grief. Depending on the mix of people, there’s even drama.

The drama in Victoria, the second chapter of They Played Productions’s Captivated trilogy, hits the ground running. The story picks up not long after the events of Justine, as investigative reporter, Mike Stone (Glenn David) and his fast-talking, hacker friend, Emma (Katie Conrad) recruit you, the audience, to help them uncover the truth behind a series of mysterious disappearances and reappearance of young women, most notably, the aforementioned, memory-addled Justine.

Mike is convinced that Victoria, Ely and his creepy henchman, Henry (Josh Ritz), are at the center of the dark mystery that surrounds Ely’s wife Justine. He and Emma believe that all these happenings can be traced back to the tragic death of Victoria’s husband, Dr. Grant Polidori.

By way of a novel bit of theater craft, the audience is transported back in time five years to Dr. Polidori’s wake, meeting the newly widowed Victoria.

Transitioning to the the wake, the audience is treated to a true sandbox immersive and left to glean information from the various pictures and artifacts around the funeral parlor, but moreso — and more importantly — from the attendees of this small, emotion-filled wake. Leah Davidson (Katherine Flannery), Gary’s nervous and awkward assistant; Oliver West (Antonio Perez) an overbearing hospital attorney; evasive yet helpful funeral director Abigail Simmons(Sarah Morris); and the grieving widow, the eponymous Victoria Polidori (Stepy Kamei).

Here the show gives us a true-to-form wake, full of barely contained emotion and the strain that comes with human need to offer comfort to those grieving for a lost loved one. Here both Kamei and Flannery shine. Kamei’s Victoria comes across shell shocked and simultaneously about to burst at the seams; Flannery’s Leah is brimming with nervous, awkward energy and barely contained tears.

During the bulk of the show the audience is forced to traverse that awkward tightrope of asking probing questions without causing confrontation — there is plenty of confrontation to be found, in part from hospital attorney Oliver West (played smarmilly en pointe by Perez), and wake latecomer Charles Nixon (portrayed with simultaneous sympathy and brazen hat-asserie by Zachary Johnson-Dunlop), husband to a former patient of the late Dr. Polidori.

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Just on the edges of it all is the mysterious and guarded funeral director, Abigail Simmons (Sarah Morris, who should be familiar to those who were lucky enough to catch the remount of Captivated, Chapter 1: Justine), who tries to keep the wake from turning into an all out disaster and occasionally shepherding guests to a room of reflection to sign the guest book — a clever way to provide audiences with a chance to take part in the memories of various characters, and arm them with larger pieces of the story. Armed with more information, the audience is free to use it (or not), and uncover the whole picture.

Herein lies the fun of the show: poking at the clues that tell the whole story — and clues are everywhere — while attempting to keep characters from clamming up completely. Though the first installment of Captivated did this very effectively, Victoria, manages to surpass its predecessor.

While the bulk of the play is the wake and the drama that unfolds as secrets are let slip or wrenched free, at the shows heart is the writing and attention to detail. While the story itself is a clever adaptation of a classic horror tale with an immersive spin, it has been crafted to keep you guessing. Then second guessing what you know, and what you think you know. The detail that has been given to the characters backgrounds make them living, real people so much so that even small things like mannerisms and what would otherwise be trivial throw-a-way lines become important. Having such in depth and consistent characters allow both the cast and the audience a lot of freedom to move around the story.

The only real flaw with Victoria is that that room to move around the story might leave those not used to so much audience agency a little lost at which way to turn next — who is most important to talk to at that moment, which conversation is the most pertinent to eavesdrop on, which audience member to confer with.

But for those who are fans of Live Action Role Play, or prefer greater amounts of agency in your immersive, then Captivated, Chapter 2, Victoria offers a chance to indulge in that brand of LARP comfort food and the particular blurring of the lines where LARP and Theatre meet.

Captivated, Chapter 2: Victoria continues playing August 24–26, and September 14–16, 21–23 located near Santa Monica and Western, in Los Angeles; the exact address to be shared upon purchasing tickets. Tickets cost $75, and can be purchased here.

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