During the month of June, Wellesley Repertory Theatre presents This Girls Laughs, This Girl Cries, This Girl Does Nothing. The play is written by Finegan Kruckemeyer, an international playwright who has received 35 awards for his work thus far. Directed by Marta Rainer, the play tells a classic fairytale story of triplets who are raised together and live identical lives. One day, the sisters are abandoned in the woods by their father in an attempt to protect them from their evil stepmother.
As a result of their abandonment, all three sisters respond differently. The oldest decides to walk in the opposite direction that their father ran off to and plans to walk all the way around the world until she ends up back at that spot in the woods. The middle sister decides to walk in the direction her father ran off to, in hopes of maybe finding him, as she too walks all the way around the world until she returns to this spot. The youngest sister vows to stay exactly where she is and make herself a home in the woods.
As their journeys apart begin, one sister becomes a warrior, one sister builds a boat out of a lighthouse and lives in a mansion, and another sister makes friends with animals and gives everything she has to people in need. The sisters’ choices differentiate them as people and women, though they may be triplets.
The play is performed at the Ruth Nagel Theatre on the Wellesley College Campus. The theatre is small and as a result, the audience feels almost as if they are part of the show. To further this effect, in many parts during the play the actors themselves sit among the audience. It is not, however, your typical play. Throughout the story, many of the actors play different roles, including acting as narrators for the story. The narrators describe how the characters are feeling or describe their actions are they do it.
Additionally, often the three sisters talk about themselves in the 3rd person, seemingly narrating their own story. The constant narration in some ways continues to breaks down the barrier between audience and performer. In fact, in one scene the actors break the fourth wall by referencing the stage and the props directly.
For the most part, the acting was good. Actress, Meredith Gosselin, who plays the middle sister, Beatrix, stands out. Her energy and emotion throughout her performance made her character extremely likable and relatable.
Though the production and acting were carried out well, as a whole I found the play hard to follow and the overall meaning of the story difficult to understand. Whether this play was a comedy or just a story of sisterhood, I cannot confidently say. There were often times I felt I was supposed to laugh but did not find it humorous. In addition, there were often scenes that were too unrealistic and far fetched. For example, at one point the older sister is given a wagon and horses with a village bakery on the wagon. Perhaps, the actors are appealing to the wrong audience here in Wellesley, or the actors themselves are too old to be playing in a children’s fairytale.
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