Emma (Stefania LaVie Owen, right) looks to Matt (Ben Rosenfield) for guidance about the script in Philippa Lawford’s Cold Water.
Anyone who has aspired to a career as an actor is likely to have experienced alternating emotional states—sometimes elation, frequently sadness—that accompany success, or the lack of it. Philippa Lawford’s thoughtful, often intense play Cold Water explores the way that youthful aspirations, tempered by reality, can elicit angst, confusion, anger, and occasionally relief, with varying impact, on two people at a British middle school.
Emma, deep in thought, pauses their duet, while Matt looks on, expectantly.
Emma (Stefania LaVie Owen), 22, is an aspiring actress who attended university in Glasgow and has returned home to Harpenden, England, where she gets a temp job while she auditions for drama schools. She lands one assisting Matt (Ben Rosenfield), the 35-year-old drama teacher at St. Joseph’s, her former school.
Despite his training at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts (RADA), Matt’s acting career has fizzled out. He has a wife to support and so has opted for the stability of teaching. Any professional regrets at not having achieved success are now overshadowed by personal worries that his wife, Katja, who really wants to conceive, cannot do so. Yet Emma’s wide-eyed wonder in reading a Chekhov script for him and her youthful freedom makes him a bit envious of her.
Matt is distressed over Emma’s confusion about her future and decision to leave the school.
The relationship between Matt and Emma is complex. He admires her energy, offers to prep her for auditions, and convinces a former RADA classmate, who is now a celebrity, to give her a chance for one. She is grateful for Matt’s help, for the technical production experience, and for the chance to read roles she adores.
In Owens’s hands, Emma’s admiration for Matt exudes attraction, and, under the direction of Michael Herwitz, the sexual tension between them escalates. Matt is the adult in the room, whereas Emma is spontaneous, impulsive, and wears her emotions on her sleeve. When they are both hung over (Matt has been to the pub, and Emma got drunk on a date), they engage in provocative repartee, and then Matt pulls back:
Matt: Emma. We’ve both had a lot to drink. It’s my fault, alright? I’m supposed to be in charge. Let me get you an Uber.
Emma: I feel like I’m this really insignificant person in your life.
Matt: You’re not. You’re not insignificant. I’m just … Katja’s pregnant. We found out on Tuesday.
There are a few playful moments. At the outset, Matt and Emma engage in a word game and later enjoy a musical interlude. He’s on guitar and she’s on piano, playing composer Julia Bailen’s pleasing tunes. She also wistfully picks a beautiful gown from a costume rack, holds it against her frame (but refuses to try it on), and is enraptured reading from The Seagull. Overall, though, their inner tensions increase. Matt talks about his stress over Katja’s not yet being pregnant. Despite Emma’s protestations to the contrary, it appears that her undeclared “super-objective” is not so much acting but sorting herself out.
Emma comes to grips with her confusion about her acting career—and Matt. Photographs by Maria Baranova-Suzuki.
Mextly Couzin’s set is effectively cluttered, reflecting a limited studio and office space, one in which it would be all too easy to get injured. At one point, Matt roots through the mess and becomes visibly frustrated because he can’t find the technical equipment he needs. Although no lighting designer is credited, there are flashing on and off overhead lights that indicate a time jump between scenes. With it, Matt and Emma transcend the awkward stage in their conversations, and the prolonged eye contact they maintain during acting exercises looks comfortable—maybe too comfortable—at least for Emma.
The title Cold Water is perplexing. Does it signify that Emma is throwing cold water on her future—a wake-up call that she isn’t truly committed to a career in the theater? Is it that Emma’s advances throw cold water on her relationship with him, knowing that he is committed to Katya and his unborn baby? Is the cold water thrown on her future as an assistant to him at the school? The play itself provides no answer. That’s the beauty of Cold Water. Excellent acting, a tight script, and an abrupt ending evoke many questions, and ultimately leave the question open to the audience’s own interpretation.
Although Cold Water’s characters are all but totally enmeshed in theater, their fragile relationships and professional and personal frustrations present much that is universal to its audiences.
Cold Water runs at the Ki Smith Gallery (170 Forsyth St.) through April 9. Performances are at 7:30 p.m. Sunday through Thursday. For more information, or to purchase tickets, call (917) 292-3572 or contact info@kismithgallery.com.
Playwright: Philippa Lawford
Director: Michael Herwitz
Set Designer: Mextly Couzin
Sound Designer: Ryan Gamblin
Composer: Julia Bailen
Costume Designer: Verity Azario
