Theatre Confetti explores the timely issues of adolescence, homosexuality and abandonment with the Philadelphia premiere of “Edith Can Shoot Things and Hit Them,” a new play by A. Rey Pamatmat, running through March 24.
With a farm in Middle America as the setting, the titular character, 12-year-old Edith (played by Bi Jean Ngo), along with her 16-year-old brother Kenny (played by out actor Justin Jain) and his boyfriend Benji (Steve Pacek), is learning how to grow up in a world without adult supervision.
“Kenny and Edith’s mom passed away very suddenly and their father was going through a really intense grieving process, and in a way has cut off his children because they remind him of his wife and the life he used to live,” Jain said about the situation the main characters find themselves in. “When the audience enters the play, these kids have been living on their own for weeks on end. So that was the external factor pushing Kenny and Edith to have to raise themselves. For Benji’s situation, it’s also the same. He comes out to his family and gets kicked out of his house in a very violent way. The interesting thing in that story is that it’s his father that is the one trying to patch all of that up. In Kenny and Edith’s story, it’s the father that is trying to destroy everything.”
Pacek said that while, on the surface, it looks like the trio is better off without the adults in their lives, they definitely long for some form of parental stability.
“They are definitely kids although they are very mature for their age,” he said. “I think that is true for all three of the kids, but they definitely crave that family unit that none of them really have in the way that they want it. I think that these kids can take care of themselves but I know that they’d love it if they could have their mom and dad and siblings as a ‘normal’ kind of family thing. They would love to experience what that would be like.”
Jain said that even though the relationship between Kenny and Benji gets a lot of attention in the play, Edith remains the focal point because of her perspective.
“She is in many ways a victim of all the things that are going on around her,” he said. “She’s an outside observer of the situations that are happening between her family and her father and her brother and his new boyfriend. Everything that is leftover gets passed on to her. She’s the one that processes all those things because Kenny decided to deflect all those things and is kind of cowardly in that way. So she becomes a strong character.”
Jain said that while others in the play regard Kenny as a coward, he doesn’t think the audience will view him that way.
“He’s not necessarily a coward but a person that is living in fear of everything around him, and is trying his best to rise above all those things. That really affects his relationship with Edith. He very much doesn’t want to deal with anything or talk about anything going on in his life, and Edith is the one that is telling him to confront and deal with these things. At the beginning of the play, Kenny is a caretaker for Benji, who is in the process of getting kicked out of his house because he is gay and dealing with bullying at school. Then in the second act when things start to shift and Benji becomes more comfortable, he starts to take on that caretaker role for Kenny as well.”
Jain added that the other main characters are somewhat deeper than they appear to be on the surface.
“All three of these children are dealing with very brave situations,” he noted. “Benji is often referred to by some of the other characters as weak, a nerd or less-than, but he also rises above a lot of things. Edith is a character who keeps saying she is old for her age and wants to be grown up, but at her heart she is still just a little girl. So this play is rife with contradictions and those complexities we all experience.”
Pacek agreed that Benji goes through a transformation over the course of the story.
“His quest is to be OK with the person he is and the person he knows he’s meant to become. He’s a cool free spirit, but his journey through most of the story is to be OK with that. His mom throws him out of the house because she finds out he is gay.”
Both Jain and Pacek said the play is Pamatmat’s way of addressing issues important to the LGBT community.
“This was his veiled way of addressing gay marriage and gay rights in America,” Jain said. “It is such an environment where these things do happen. We’re liberated enough to be able to talk about these issues in the open. At the same token, they are still happening. Kids are getting kicked out of their school. They are getting beat up at school. It’s taboo for some people to be together if they are the same sex in certain towns and areas in America. This play addresses those issues. One of the things I find interesting is the playwright intentionally sets this play in the early 1990s instead of the modern day. So I’m sure there are political undertones there. As a performer in the piece, you can definitely feel and connect to a lot of those thematic things going on in the play with what’s going on in my everyday life.”
Said Palek: “All three of the characters go on major journeys for themselves, but ultimately it’s a lot about creating family and creating those special relationships with people rather than the one you’re born into, but families that you get to make in this life through friends and significant others and through people that come into your life. I think it’s a lot about the creation of family. It deals with it in many different ways, too. So I’m actually really curious to see what audiences think and get out of it. The tone of it goes from these really funny things to really sad things but, ultimately, we get to a place where the kids have to learn to be ok with the situations in life that just are. There are some things you can’t do anything about and you have to learn to embrace those things.”
Theatre Confetti presents “Edith Can Shoot Things and Hit Them” through March 24 at The Power Plant Basement, 233 N. Bread St. For more information or tickets, visit www.theatreconfetti.com.