What happens when a relationship 20 years dead is revived by a slamming screen door and an ex-wife appearing with luggage? According to Sharr White’s "Annapurna," love, like matter and energy, cannot be destroyed – only transformed.
Ulysses, a once-successful poet, is living in squalor with nothing but a bedraggled trailer and an oxygen tank. He hasn’t written a poem in 10 years, and his only companion is his hellhound of a dog. He’s shocked when Emma, his ex-wife, shows up after leaving him 20 years prior.
The opening moments of the production are both hilarious and surprising. As Emma enters with luggage and a go-getting attitude, Ulysses is cooking clad in only an apron and an oxygen tank.
Ulysses is practically in pieces, dragging his body along as if it is almost separate from his wit and personality. Emma seems more unscathed, until a change of clothes reveals bruises along her arms and the reason she left her second husband.
Two decades’ anxiety and anger come to a boil as Ulysses and Emma (Terry Hempleman and Angela Timberman) rehash their love, their son and the night she walked out.
Their son, Sam, is on his way to meet the father he grew up without. The mention of Sam is like a live wire between the parents, and they spark at any mention of him. It is clear that something terrible happened to make Emma flee with him in tow.
This claustrophobic confrontation culminates in a sentimental examination of two souls that never truly left each other. Emma’s years were spent in a seemingly stable second marriage as she raised Sam. She hints at a boredom for life after Ulysses, but refuses to talk about the night she left. Ulysses’ adventures were glossed over as, “a few girlfriends, one fiancé."
Between the words, Hempleman and Timberman make "Annapurna’s" heartbeat. Their electric connection hums and glows in an incredibly believable exploration of a love lost and rediscovered. Director-Designer Joel Sass gives a mountainous, emotional arena for them to duke it out in; a raggedy, timeless full-sized trailer nested in the Colorado Rockies filled to the brim with the wreckage of Ulysses’ life.
This emotionally devastating two-person production showcases what the Jungle does best: providing a world that is at once intimate and meteoric. "Annapurna" leaves the audience at the peak of the mountain looking down at the mountainside of a love rediscovered.
