It's Hard to Get a Handle on 'We Are Not These Hands'

Casie Platt plays Moth in Catalyst Theatre's production of "We Are Not These Hands." (By Joe Shymanski -- Catalyst Theater)

People who like theater to raise questions will have a field day during Sheila Callaghan's "We Are Not These Hands." In this case, though, those queries include: Is the language that the two grubby teenage girls speak to one another actually baby talk? And can it be endured for two hours?

Catalyst Theatre Company must have been drawn in by the swaggering eccentricity of Callaghan's script, in which the Third World girls -- Moth and Belly -- become mesmerized by the icky wonders of the Internet. The coin-fed computers, which are in some clapped-together cafe, show the worst kind of smut -- some of which can be glimpsed on the ancient but functional monitors (no laptops or flat-screens) strewn about the seedy set of Shirley Serotsky's production.

We are in the trash room of the world's economy -- a potentially rich setting that Callaghan raids for atmosphere but cannot plunder for meaning or even a compelling story. The girls want out, over the river or through the screens, and maybe the hapless American academic who wanders into their orbit can orchestrate passage.

But does Callaghan really have an international issue on her mind? Where these waifs are, where they'll go and what drives their pathetic situation are all maddeningly vague. Think China if you like, but the script doesn't force the issue.

Instead, Callaghan takes a lavish mud bath in broken language. Some of the idiot pidgin spoken by Belly and Moth comes across as ripe apocalyptic slang; at its best, it's racy and unrefined, the kind of stuff you might imagine kids in the back alleys of a decaying world might sling around. "My peepers is hobbin'," Belly says when her eyes are dazzled.

More often, though, it sounds like toddlers describing porn, with cutesy names for degrading stuff. And when they talk of someone being not just killed but "killed-ed," it's a widdle too pwecious.

But wait -- is this supposed to be a comedy? There's a brilliantly funny line near the end, after what feels like an it's-time-for-an-explosion explosion. Yet the mood Serotsky sets up is pretty gloomy, and the acting of Regina Aquino (Belly) and Casie Platt (Moth) has an adolescent earnestness that seems to invite pathos. (Plus, the performers both sound like they graduated from college.) The laughter in the small Capitol Hill Arts Workshop was scattered and sporadic.

Final question: What is Scott Fortier, as Leather -- the eccentric, self-described "freelance scholar" -- doing with his left hand? Sign language? Neurological disorder?

Leather's as messed-up as the girls, excitedly capturing his thoughts in a portable tape recorder and addressing his comments to his dead mother. This smart guy isn't actually very smart, can't make sense of the economics and can't speak much better than Belly and Moth. Callaghan renders him in stammered fragments, and Fortier offers not just the disfigured speech -- "I tend to be a little brang!" the character says in a rare complete sentence -- but also lays on twitchy, angular physical oddities.

It would seem safe to slot that as over-the-top, but a certain downscale flamboyance appears to be what Catalyst bargained for. It's a bizarre hook, and you keep waiting for the play's interests to widen, for Callaghan to tighten connections, for the emotional damage and economic deprivation to begin resonating.

Instead, the undercooked play settles for a bargain-basement "Mad Max" vibe (especially in Erik Trester's projections and Deb Sevigny's ripped costumes for the heavily made-up girls) and a whacked-out romance.

After an hour, any hope of greater reward is pretty much killed-ed.

We Are Not These Hands, by Sheila Callaghan. Directed by Shirley Serotsky. Set design, Nicholas Vaughan; lights, Jason Cowperthwaite; sound design, William Burns. About two hours. Through March 3 at the Capitol Hill Arts Workshop, 545 Seventh St. SE. Call 800-494-TIXS or visit http://www.catalysttheater.org