Long postponed by the Pandemic, Paralyzed keeps its two characters’ meeting also delayed. Yet Lee and Leigh are importantly related from youth through middle age. Playwright Etan Frankel deals with their progress by having each act it out individually in tandem. Their mainly oral interpretative parts lead, under Meg Gilbert’s vigorous direction, to a very satisfying traditional dramatic climax.
Alexander Stuart’s Lee comes on as a brash high school and college football player. He stopped being a BMOC when, in scrimmage, he caused a teammate the titled disability. Academically oriented Leigh, self-described as dedicated to probability, usually as statistics, also gained humanistic concerns from her minister father.
Rachel Moulton shows Leigh convinced, from learning about Anne Frank, that immediate action against or avoiding inhumane happenings is needed to prevent them. Her own experience acting on her convictions involved the genocide in Rwanda. She tries, back home in an Illinois small town, to be and do good by teaching, including sponsoring an African boy. Lee always struggles to stay somehow active in sports.
Leigh’s first hope for romance turned out to be gay. She’s had a late, heterosexual-but-desperate sexual experience. (Meg Gilbert must have done double duty as an intimacy director to help Rachel Moulton deal so well with this.) Lee’s had many abysmal tries for a good life, including children, with sweetheart from high school on. What will the leads have in common?
Stage Three plays at Florida Studio Theatre are known for their strong content. Paralyzed is perfectly placed on the Bowne’s Lab simple stage with back wall projections of abstract design. Colors change according to the play’s seasons or moods. Erin Barnett’s costumes respect the times they’re worn. In a last, autumnal scene, the background colors, Andrew Gray’s lighting, and costumes all blend creatively. Louis Vetter Torres’s sound design matches the drama.
