‘Trestle’ fine entry in Wallace series

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Matt Farabee and Marissa Cowsill play Dalton and Pace in “The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek,” set during the Great Depression.

Updated: July 28, 2011 2:15AM

‘We are like potatoes left in a box,” says one of the two high school-age characters in “The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek,” Naomi Wallace’s hauntingly twisted Depression-era drama now being presented by Eclipse Theatre.

Yes, the smart, sensitive Dalton (Matt Farabee), who is almost 16, and Pace (Marissa Cowsill), the troubled, brainy wild girl two years his senior, are living in a time (1936) and place (a small, American industrial town), full of shattered dreams. But while Dalton, whose unemployed father has become something of a hermit, and whose mother ekes out a living at a factory job, still harbors some hope of going to college, Pace, clearly bursting with potential, is already on the brink of nihilism.

In fact, obsessed with the great locomotives that periodically zoom over the trestle bridge in their town, Pace is hellbent on racing the steely monster, and even more determined to make Dalton attempt the perilously dangerous feat alongside her. And over the course of several weeks, she uses every psychological and sexual ploy in her arsenal, relentlessly taunting and teasing Dalton, who is vulnerable but certainly no pushover, to the edge. The outcome, of course, is tragic.

Along the way, we meet Dalton’s father, Dray (Kevin Scott), who has plummeted into depression, and mother, Gin (the quietly compelling Cindy Marker), a genuine survivor — devastated by her husband’s retreat and painfully aware of both Pace’s yearning for life, and her power over her son. In addition, there is Chas (Sean Bolger), the man long estranged from his own son (and from himself), who tries to look after Dalton after it’s all too late.

Director Jonathan Berry, who staged a knockout Steep Theatre production of the pitch black “Festen” this spring, and who will make his Off Broadway debut this fall, is a master of shedding light on darkness. And while he and his superbly chosen actors can’t entirely camouflage Wallace’s frequently self-conscious, heavily poetic dialogue, this production — the second of three plays in Eclipse’s all-Wallace season — goes a long way in dispelling the feeling that the characters are mouthpieces for the playwright’s political views. He goes deep into the emotions that drive these people.

Farabee, whippet-thin and very boyish-looking, gives a tremendously raw, affecting, wholly riveting performance. Cowsill expertly captures the volatility and rage of Pace’s racing mind. And the pair’s tense, unhealthy chemistry is caught ideally.

Joe Schermoly’s tremendously muscular, rusted steel girder set (with fine lighting by Lee Keenan and sound by Josh Jorvath) is perfection in this play about desperate times.

NOTE: Eclipse’s Wallace season, which began with a sharp revival of “One Flea Spare” (to be staged by the Comedie Francaise, making Wallace the first non-French female dramatist to have her work done there), will wind up with the Chicago premiere of “The Fever Chart: Four Visions of the Middle East” (Sept. 15-Oct. 30).