Review: “A Five Mile Radius” with the Hudson Guild Theatre Company
“A Five Mile Radius” was written by Tasha Partee and tells the story of food critic, Edie (Stacey Wright), as she tries to find the shooter of a young boy using her popular social media account. Things become more complicated as it is discovered that the boy was wearing what is implied to be a MAGA hat in the photo she shared. Struggling between maintaining her image and saving this young fan, Edie must also deal with relics of her past being dug up and a fanbases split opinion. “A Five Mile Radius” is a show that deals with a lot of complex issues. However, it doesn’t appear to come to any conclusions.
While many shows excel by showing many perspectives and sides of any issue and allowing the audience to come to their own conclusions, these shows still have characters firmly on one side and the other in order to explore the complexities of the issue. Even if the show itself wants to be neutral, the characters must have a clear set of beliefs in order for the audience to understand what is being explored. The main character in “Five Mile Radius” did not. Actually, many of the characters teetered back and forth between perspectives without ever offering any insight on where they stood or how we should feel about it. I didn’t care about any of the characters because the play spent so much time trying to be “neutral” that it didn’t actually tell us anything about who these people were.
The social media coordinator played by Michele Quintero was the only character that I found myself interested in, because, despite her never explicitly stating it, her beliefs, morals, and values were made clear. She had a clear stance. She had a clear motivation. When this motivation (Maintaining Edie’s image) came into conflict with her beliefs we could see that struggle. Though, even with this character, it could have been clearer. Quintero was the stand out of the play, giving an honest and engaging performance. Wright as Edie had moments of emotion peak through but ultimately, I felt like the performances were just as neutral as the show. Of course, this could have been, in part, due to the writing.
Another aspect that seemed out of place was the time frame of the play’s events. Throughout, we see a time card telling us the day and time we are currently in. And while the time card itself is really nice addition and helpful for a Zoom production, the times presented don’t make sense. The play supposedly takes place all in one night from 9PM to 3AM. Six hours. In six hours a boy is shot, the main character goes on the news to speak about it twice, a post requesting prayers goes viral, a statement is put out, responses to that statement are generated, and the entire problem resolves itself. While things going viral in a few days is nothing new, there is a lot of activity that has to happen, and a lot of people that have to be awake in the middle of the night for all of this to actually go down in the way that it did.
The ideas presented in the show were actually very compelling and the play asked good questions. It just seemed like they didn’t know how to go about answering them. Though, I will say, the play adapted very well to the digital medium. I believed they were all there standing in the same room, which is very difficult to achieve on Zoom. All in all, “A Five Mile Radius” was a play with a lot of ambitious ideas but wasn’t sure how to handle them.
“A Five Mile Radius” was written by Tasha Partee and directed by Jim Furlong and Devin Klos. It was produced over Zoom by the Hudson Guild Theater Company
It features: Stacy Wright, Michele Quintero, Danielle Patsakos, Anthony Roberts II, Alex Lugo, Tasha Partee, Manuel Estevez, Kim Gardner, Ashley Woolcock, Michele Tokarczyk, Devin Klos, Jim Furlong
It streams on the Hudson Guild Official Youtube Channel Friday, October 30 at 7:30 through Sunday, November 1 at 5:00PM