Now through July 29, Youngblood Theatre continues its debut month with a production of John Patrick Shanley's drama Savage in Limbo. Abbey Starr White is captivating in the title role of Denise Savage, a woman in her early 30s trying to escape the mundane prison of her lifealong with everyone else inhabiting Scales, a small dive bar in the Bronx. Joining Denise at the bar are April White (a deft Ashley Sevedge playing both comic relief and tragic icon), an aggressive mess of a woman named Linda Rotunda (charmingly portrayed by Callie Eberdt) and Rotunda's ex-boyfriend Tony Aronica (an adept comic turn by Andrew Edwin Voss). Tommy Stevens adds tragicomic punctuation to the show as Murk.
Shanley is none too subtle in hammering home the idea that all of these characters are lost in personal purgatories on the early edge of 30. The unnatural framing of this idea feels a bit odd in Youngblood's natural environment at Landmark Lanes' Side Bar. That said, this side room at Landmark does a brilliant job of bringing the audience to the stage in a truly unique live theater experience.
