The Know Theatre, which always pushes the envelope in intriguing ways, is doing it again. Skin Tight is a short play with no intermission, and starts off with the woman and man in very physical fights. Many times the fighting is so real it is scary – and so real we are in wonder at the moments between – when tenderness and warmth come into play. Both the man and woman / husband and wife are aggressors. Fighting, punching, biting, stabbing, hairpulling, threatening with a knife.
Playing out their life story to this point, eating apples, washing one another’s hair on this bare stage. As Producing Artistic Director Eric Vosmeier said at the beginning – you could have sponsored this set for about $15 – that was for the two buckets, didn’t include the washtub. Say $75 tops.
The play was shocking over and over again. Physically, mentally, spiritually. The fighting. The mental cruelty. The deliberate attempts by this couple living out their lives in New Zealand to keep one another off balance spiritually. Then the slow dawning of the sense that the fact that she has to go means….she’s dying, and they are working through their lives from that viewpoint.
The total nudity of the final scene is in many ways the least shocking part of the play. Excellent and disturbing work.