FRINGE REVIEW: The Hoarder's Child

It's a connection worth exploring, but one that goes completely unaddressed in Jones' play.

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FRINGE REVIEW: The Hoarder’s Child

POSTED: Saturday, September 15, 2012, 10:42 AM

Every year, there's hundreds and hundreds of performances at the Philly Fringe and Live Arts Festival, and unless it's one of the big shows, it's sometimes hard to tell what you're going to get. Here at Critical Mass we're sending writers to as many shows as we possibly can for 75 pocket-sized reviews over the course of the fest. Check back in with us at On The Fringe every day for real talk on what these things actually are!

SHOW: The Hoarder’s Child

GROUP: Blue Scarf Collective

GENRE: Theater

ATTENDED: Fri., Sept. 14, 1 p.m.

CLOSES: Sat., Sept. 15

BRIEF SELF-DESCRIPTION: A one woman play about things we consume and stories we tell ourselves: a child lives alone amid left behind stuff. Acting out an interruption to her routine, she reveals a violent past and the horrors inhabiting her space. Her yearning for contact takes us on a journey of humor, pathos, and hope.

WE THINK: In The Hoarder’s Child, Joanna Sycz plays a girl of indeterminate age as she wakes up one morning amid the detritus accumulated by her dead mother, surveys her filthy conditions, and splits her attention between memories of the woman who raised her and snatches of overheard conversations between the new owners now standing outside her door. In her notes, playwright Heather Jones draws parallels between obsessive-compulsive hoarding behavior and our society’s general tendency to overconsume. It’s a connection worth exploring, but one that goes completely unaddressed in Jones’ play. In fact, running closer to 35 minutes than the advertised 45-minute running time, The Hoarder’s Child barely addresses anything other than the stunted development of a person who inherited everything and nothing — and even that rings false.

—M.J. Fine

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