Reviewed by Amalisha HuEck
IAMA Theatre Company launched its new comedy Arrowhead by Catya McMullen about a radical change in a person's life when a young woman is attracted to girls, while at the same time longs for having a sexual encounter with men. The emotionally significant crisis brings out an interesting conflict especially when she considers herself a lesbian, has a girlfriend and gets pregnant.
Gen (Amielynn Abellera) with the help of her friends Stacy (Stefanie Black), Cam (Lindsay Coryne) and Maggie (Kacie Rogers) plan an abortion at Stacy's family cabin in the woods, while Lily (Kathleen Littlefield) Gen's long-term girlfriend is occupied with building a habitat, a cat tree house and is not aware of her girlfriend's true reason for visiting her friend's cabin. To create more complexity to the already challenging situation, Stacy's brother Levi (Nate Smith) and his friend Brody (Adrian Gonzalez) unexpectedly arrive to spend a weekend at the cabin. There is a lot of identity crisis and biological mess when questions like 'What am I' pop up, and we witness how intimacy and sexual individuality can be psychologically presented with difficulties. When heterosexuality is at play. It becomes a painful and confusing experience. Great teamwork everyone!
A letter from the playwright explains where the story came from and its full consequences, "Arrowhead is my letter to queerness. It's dialectic, a series of landmines; sometimes deeply controversial views told with empathy (hopefully). I've found my own queerness exists in a bit of a holy trinity: what I want sexually, my identity, and my community. As I've gotten older, my relationship to all three have unraveled and rewoven themselves. Additionally, this isn't a singularly queer story. It touches on my own navigation of the ways in which what I sometimes want conflicts not only with my queerness, but my feminism."
The creative team embraces the vision with ease. Arrowhead is produced by Quinn O'Connor and a co-producer Katharine Means with Zaira Paredes-Villegas as the production stage manager and assistant Isabella Gomez. Scenic designer Carolyn Mraz with assistant Nicole Bernardini alongside the sound designer Eliza Vedar and lighting designer Erica Ammerman. Costume designer is Danae Iris McQueen and wardrobe supervisor is Athena Saxon. Properties designer is Nicole Bernardini, intimacy & fight designer is Celina Lee Surniak and abortion dramaturg is Zoe Lilian. Technical director is Daniel Czypinski, and the house managers are Athena Saxon and Seth Hale. Lucy Pollak is a publicist, casting director is Jordan Bass, CSA and photographer is Jeff Lorch. The play is directed by Jenna Worsham; Rosalind Bevan is associate director.
Performances take place at Atwater Village Theatre, located at 3269 Casitas Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90039. Free parking is available in the ATX (Atwater Crossing) lot one block south of the theater.
'Arrowhead' runs Fridays, Saturdays, and Mondays at 8 p.m., and on Sundays at 2 p.m. through March 4. All tickets are $40. IAMA has "pay what you can" community nights on Monday, Feb. 19 and Monday, Feb. 26.
For reservations and information, call (323) 380-8843 or go to iamatheatre.com.
*** A letter from IAMA "We are forging a new path forward with a new leadership team and a renewed sense of purpose to cultivate the very best new work in Los Angeles. It's our 16th season and we're gonna make it a SWEET one."