If anything can rock your boat, this has to be it. Yesterday, I caught the matinee at Four Stages Theater and was thoroughly blown away by the characters onstage. Each one shared a seamy, painful, personal story of how they were connected to the sex trade. Taken from real life interviews writer/director/actor Jacquay Waller conducted before putting the production together, there was the searing ring of truth to all of them.
We shared the experience of a high school girl whose stepfather was selling her and her friends at "parties" while her mother was away on business. A pervert talked about how much he "loved" the two little girls he "entertained" with the permission of their mother who collected $50,000. It makes you want to run to the lavatory and wash just to have listened.
Waller stole the show as a pimp who strutted in his fancy suit and talked about how he "loved" his girls but would kill them -- and had done so -- if they didn't bring the "paper."
In the rest room at intermission, a grandmother confessed to me that she is concerned about her granddaughter and the stepfather who is in the household and "doesn't seem right." Right out of the script.
If the performances on stage were awesome, so was audience participation at the end. Characters paraded onto the stage and the audience was invited to question them -- not as actors -- as the characters they played. Hard hitting comments put them on the spot. Why did they do what they did? Great street language on both sides. There was no fooling around or letting anyone off easy..
Traffik will be going on the road. This was its premiere. The website to follow is www.catchingdreamz.com.
There are also videos out there that The Dreamcatcher Collective, Inc. has created in association with Dreamcatcher Productions.
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