Marianne Myers, Chris Holbert, Michael Schaff and Matthew Randall act out a scene of Six Degrees of Separation at NOVA’s Loudoun campus Sept. 25.

Six Degrees of Separation had its opening night on Friday, October 9, at NOVA Loudon’s Waddell Theater.  The house was packed, the laughs were plenty and the actors, who could be heard even in the back of the theatre, made the unusual transition from addressing the audience to addressing each other without a hitch.

The play, directed by Haley Murphy and produced by Colleen Stock for CCT with 2^nd Flight Theatre Company, deals with imagination in art, in lies, in self-identity and in hope.

The play’s lead character, an African American con man named Paul, seeks not just money but a family and an identity.   Christopher Holbert brings out the different sides of Paul’s character smoothly.  In the beginning of the play, the audience believes his con and falls in love with him in his persona as an imaginative and thoughtful Harvard student.  At Paul’s worst moment, the audience cringes as new victims of the con, Rick and Elizabeth (played by Joel Piper and Emily Price) lose not just a few dollars but their self-identity and dreams.  Finally, in the end, Paul himself falls victim to the failed promises of Flan and Ouisa Kittredge (Marianne Meyers and Matthew Randall) when he promises to turn himself in provided they help him afterwards.  Finally honest, he is where he says he will be when the police arrive.  Flan and Ouisa Kittredge, however, are not there as promised when the police drag him off “kicking and screaming”.

Rotating set pieces made the scene changes smooth as the play transitioned from living room to bedroom sets.  The lighting and set designs were as polished as the acting. A couple of minor hitches with lines and stepping into the spotlight did not disrupt the play.

Matthew Randall, as art dealer Flan Kittredge, had two striking changes of heart in the play, both excellently acted.  The first happened right after he met Paul, whose inspiring dinner conversation moved him to actually admire art again, not just for the money.  The second happened in the final scenes, after the deception was revealed and Paul was jailed – Flan became so noticeably greedy and icy that Ouisa herself was enraged at his emptiness.

The acting makes the slightly unusual connections in the play believable. The children of the Kittredges and of Paul’s other wealthy con victims reject their parents with adolescent anger.  Ouisa, hurt by this, feels connected to Paul despite their “degrees of separation” because she perceives that he wants to be her child and admires her life.

The play ends with Ouisa and Paul having a dream-like connection, there and not there.  That moment carries the play’s message about hope and imagination, without leaving the audience too sentimentally satisfied to think about the other types of hurt introduced in earlier scenes.  The final impression is that this play by John Guare deserved its accolades, and this production deserves them as well.

By: Christine Boyce

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