‘One Flea Spare’ gets strong revival at Eclipse

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Morse (Elizabeth Stenholt) in Eclipse Theatre's production of "One Flea Spare" by Naomi Wallace.

Updated: April 14, 2011 3:07PM

The Great Plague that devastated England in 1665 and is said to have killed about 20 percent of London’s population, failed to bring out the better instincts in people. In fact, it only exacerbated the class struggle (the poor died in far greater numbers than the upper class). And when it came to that other struggle — the one between the sexes — well, the plague didn’t do much to alter the dynamics of that relationship either, with matters of sex and death proceeding more or less in the usual way, though perhaps with a bit more cruelty and desperation.

These are just a few of the conclusions to be drawn from “One Flea Spare,” Naomi Wallace’s odd and intriguing 1995 play now receiving a strong revival by Eclipse Theatre — the first of three works in this company’s season devoted to the work of this Kentucky-born, fiercely leftist playwright who spent many years living and working in England. Wallace does not paint a terribly pretty picture of humanity. But her heated, poetic language (at times self-consciously so), and her strong characters keep you watching and listening. So do the actors in director Anish Jethmalani’s vivid production.

“One Flea Spare” (which takes its title from a John Donne poem, as well as from the tiny creature that spreads the plague from the rodents who carry it), is set in one room of an elegant townhouse (designer Kevin Hagen gets it just right) owned by a shipping magnate, Snelgrave (a volatile Brian Parry), and his wife, Darcy (Susan Monts Bologna in an immensely brave and passionate portrayal).

The windows of the place are boarded up, and before the couple can embark on their planned escape to the countryside they are “invaded” by two strangers on the run as well — Bunce (a fascinating performance by the easily charismatic J.P. Pierson), a handsome, worldly, and very hungry young merchant seaman, and Morse (Elizabeth Stenholt), an exceedingly precocious 12-year-old runaway who might be the daughter of a recently deceased wealthy family, or perhaps a servant for that family. (Stenholt, a freshman at Maine West High School, gives an astonishingly accomplished performance here and has “star” written all over her.)

The arrival of these two homeless people result in all four of them being quarantined for a month, with Kabe (a terrifically wily Zach Bloomfield), the zestily sadistic security guard who patrols the streets, taking full advantage of the situation.

Trapped, and with a sense of mortality looming at every turn, all notions of civilized behavior become a mockery here as these characters engage in storytelling, and, more crucially, in games of sex and power that alternate between the playful and teasing, and the potentially fatal. A pair of fine shoes, handed back and forth between Snelgrave and Bunce, captures the artificiality of the social divide. So does a searing sexual exchange between Darcy and Bunce, as well as a far more cynical bit of bartering between Morse and Kabe that involves toe-sucking.

Wallace’s play unquestionably captures a pervasive sense of sickness. But it is more a matter of moral rot than the plague that is her subject here. And it is people, not fleas, that carry those sorts of germs.