Show reviewed:  Collisions
Playwright:  William Rogersl
Date saw the show:  July 27, 2008
Place saw the show: Kansas City Fringe Festival,  Kansas City, Missouri
Company: Tara Lane Productions in association with City Theatre of Independence
Principal Leads: Nicole Hall, Lyndsey Ogle, Richard Gorell, Dwenah Tomlin, Jack McCord, Matthew Schmidli, Tyler Miller, Kyle Wallen
Director:  Patricia McLaughlin 

Reviewed by:  Deborah Ground Buckner (Kansas City Correspondent - USA) 

Reminiscent of William Inge's Bus Stop, Collisions is set in a small coffee shop on a winter day.  Like Inge's work, the setting and the situation bring together a diverse collection of people, giving them the opportunity to interact in enlightening and sometimes surprising ways.

Jennifer (Nicole Hall) seems to be the only employee of the coffee shop.  Defining herself as an artist (ceramics), she enjoys her work as a "barista".  She moves comfortably between her group of "mall walkers," and a group of Gen-Xers. 

The mall walkers are composed of Carl (Richard Gorell) and his wife, Vi (Dwenah Tomlin), Carl's cousin, Speedy (Tyler Miller) and Oly (Jack McCord).  Carl, Vi, and Speedy represent "The Greatest Generation."  Carl, at age 80, has earned a place in the "100 Mile Club" of mall walkers.  Oly, at 60, is a Vietnam veteran, but more at home with the older crowd than with the Gen-Xers.

The younger group is made up of Rainey (Lyndsey Ogle), working long, erratic hours in retail with the hope of entering management; Caleb (Matthew Schmidli), the rich kid who has entered his father's law firm and drives a Hummer in the snow, keeping his Porsche as a summer vehicle; and Derek (Kyle Wallen), a Mexican restaurant worker and Rainey's sort-of boyfriend. 

The dialogue is almost a dance as each generation talks of the problems it has endured or is enduring.  Although they consider themselves worlds apart from each other, the similarities of their struggles is apparent to the audience, on the outside looking in.  The groups keep apart from each other.  Boundary lines are crossed when Vi, aching from corns after the walk (the result of years of wearing the wrong shoes, Carl reports), stops to admire Rainey's red high heels.  Vi tells of getting her own first pair of "pretty shoes," ordering them from a catalogue for a dance.  Then they hurt her feet so much she had to sit out all the dances after the first.  Rainey doesn't try to hide her lack of interest in the story, but offers an anecdote about a friend who paid $5000 to have her second toes removed to make her shoes fit better.  Vi can only shake her head and advise Rainey to "take good care of your feet." 

A collision of the generations occurs when Speedy is late for his mall walk and Derek misses a morning job interview.  As the characters finally appear in the coffee shop, each tells his side of an automobile collision when Speedy braked at a yellow light and Derek could not stop on the snowy street and rear-ended Speedy's car.  

As each generation criticizes the other, the similarities among the characters become more apparent.  It demonstrates a cycle of life that renews itself with each generation. 

The life and death concerns of each character mirror the real life tragedy that affected this show when Jerry Stark, originally cast as Speedy, suddenly fell ill and died.  Tyler Miller stepped into the role just shortly before staging.  Even with the excitement of staging a production, the cast has had to face the sadness of the situation.  It  brings home the advice Oly offers to Jennifer:  Sometimes the best thing you can do is smile.