One of the innovative companies producing at the old firehouse at the base of Bunker Hill Ave. in Charlestown, a few blocks from the Sullivan Sq. T-stop on the Orange Line is Molasses Tank Productions. Their fall offering is Julie Hebert's short but intense drama, "Almost Asleep." This ensemble piece is essentially a nightmare, as a woman's persona fragments into five characters. Susan Gross, last seen in "Swimming After Dark" at Devanaughn, plays The Chatterer, who recounts a brutal encounter which an incident at work earlier in the day has brought back to mind. Becca A. Lewis is The Sleeper, who is able to repress this past--much of the time. Wendy Nystrom is The Dreamer, who tries to make sense of her fears. She appeared in MT's Beckett program last season. Kristin Shoop, who's done musicals recently, is The Fool, who survives by childlike play. And Loann West, who also did the set and costumes, is The Warrior, a strong and bitter realist. She was responsible for realizing Pat Keck's designs for last seasons "Acts of Futility."
Artistic director Steve Rotolo, one of the group's founders, has staged the piece simply, allowing the poetic flow of words, which occasionally overlap, to build a dense abstract of this unnamed woman's mental turmoil, a mix of fear and hope. "Almost Asleep" builds to a crescendo and fades on an image. The show is less than an hour long, but just long enough. Julie Hebert has worked with various contemporary theatre groups, several on the West Coast, and is currently writing for the Scott brothers T.V. hit, NUMB3RS., and finishing a play.
Since "Almost Asleep" is less than an hour long in terms of dialogue, producers might feel a need to present it as part of a bill. The piece's concentration however would make it difficult to follow, and anything played before would inevitably suggest a relationship. The only possible extensions would need to be internal, either multimedia, movement, or musical. And any additions would have to be carefully chosen to maintain the author's poetic rhythm. Rotolo's decision to play it alone was correct.