Shots Go Wild... Evie's Waltz at Shadow Theatre

Yesterday I took in Evie's Waltz at Shadow Theatre.  It's a difficult play about a challenging topic and left me with much to think about - too much really.  The script (by Carter Lewis) is rhetoric filled with comments on parenting (good and bad), judgement, bullying, gun control, kids with guns, school shootings, dancing, vegetarianism, infidelity and a few other things.  I think it did a lot in terms of leaving you things to think about, but by focusing so much on the 'issues' it also had a lot of unbelievable dialogue which challenged the actors. They rose to the occasion, with Coralie Cairns (Gloria) being the most successful at consistently making the jargon sound like something a real person might say.  She also has the biggest journey and she is worth the price of admission as she moves from frustrated, angry and disengaged to regretful and desperate.  Doug Mertz (Clay) and Karen Mott (Evie) do their best with it, but are not as successful.  Clay is written as a bit of a one-note character and Evie seems so contradictory so that they just don't work as well.  Still, it was an interesting show and my date Kara and I talked a great deal about it afterwards. It would have been better to rely more on more basic wants and needs than on the philosophical arguments.  If that were the case it would have been easier for them to sustain the tension required under the circumstances.  As it is, the imminent threat ebbs and flows with the rhetoric which I think lets the audience off too easy. I would have far preferred to leave with my abs aching from the tension of what will happen?  instead of my brain aching from sorting through the points it was trying to make.