Gabriel (Dominick Vincent Alesia) and Emmett (Lucas Matteson) are strangers in a strange land. Robbed and left out in the middle of nowhere after a bar brawl with a biker gang called the Heaven’s Rejects, the pair is rescued by Ma Fowler (Amy Gorelow) and her daughters, Jon (Samm Hilger) and Simon (Sonya Robinson). Then things get weird. Or weirder. Because nothing in this remote part of Colorado is what it seems.
Windwalkers Through 10/29: Thu-Sat 8 PM, Sun 3 PM, Den Theatre, 1331 N. Milwaukee, theimpostorstheatre.com, $25 reserved, $20 general admission
To begin with: why are party boy Emmett and worrywart Gabriel even traveling together? They seem to have nothing in common. They don’t even like each other. But there’s something from the past that binds them to one another. Something bad that Emmett did but Gabriel feels responsible for. So has Gabriel appointed himself Emmett’s keeper as some kind of atonement for his own sin? It’s murky and becomes only more so when the two men wash up at the Fowler ranch.
The town of Windwater—population 400 or so—isn’t used to visitors and is lately not eager to reveal too much to anyone who isn’t their own. Sheriff Edward Johnson (Paul Chakrin) and Deputy Richard Monroe (Kevin Woodrow) spend their days tracking a creature that’s killing residents and livestock, leaving little but skin and bone in its wake.
Is there a creature or is one of the Fowlers responsible? Simon doesn’t speak and is rarely seen without a sickle; Ma is domineering and randomly metes out corporal punishment on her clearly terrified daughters; Jon’s past and motives only gain mystery the more she reveals. Life on the ranch is bizarre, and gets even stranger with newcomers added to the mix. I didn’t even mention the pregnant daughter-in-law (Anna Roemer) or the babies or her dead husband or the ghosts who haunt Gabriel’s dreams.
Stefan Roseen, who wrote and directed, packs a ton of ideas and themes into three-plus hours. So many that several are barely resolved. But by setting the story in a moonscape purgatory and filling it with beings whose contours and boundaries are fuzzy at best, he gives himself a widescreen canvas to explore family, faith, and the meaning of community. He scatters clues about—like the preponderance of biblical names—but leaves things admirably messy. Is this Gabriel’s story or Jon’s or perhaps that of the murderous creature stalking the countryside? I can’t say for sure and wouldn’t tell you if I could. This is a brand-new play and it’s exciting to see such a fresh thing cohere before the eyes. I imagine it could be tightened up or focused a bit, but I, for one, would miss such ungodly sprawl.