By TOM HELMA
The Lansing City Pulse October 20, 2004

It is not easy to combine powerful political commentary with live theater, but Icarus Falling does just that with its opening show of the season, “Keely and Du.”

The play is a dialogue between a young woman who wants to terminate her pregnancy and two extreme pro-life advocates who kidnap her and try to talk her out of it. Du and her political collaborator, Walter, attempt to brainwash and de-program the fiercely-determined Keely, who has been raped by her ex-husband.

Most of the dialogue is between the tired and ancient nurse Du and her young prisoner. The nurse is a woman of fierce biblical principles, but also displays moments of great empathy. She is played to perfection by Laura Croff, whose mannerisms and walk convince us that this still-young actress is, indeed, elderly. Keely, played by an even younger Jamie DesRocher, brings an intriguing naturalistic style to her characterization and is Croff’s equal on stage at all times.

This duo is joined occasionally by Kevin Knights, playing the so-sure-of-himself, born-again fundamentalist pastor, Walter.

Anyone who sticks with this intense drama all the way will be rewarded by a kicker of a resolution.

Icarus Falling’s resident producer Fred Longacre doubles as the director of this play and has gotten a whole lot of good acting out of his three main characters. (A fourth character, Cole, played by John Dexter, is on stage for only one short scene, but also delivers the goods). Longacre’s superb direction is most evident in the small, but noticeably nuanced, non-verbal movements of Du and Walter as they observe the climactic scene between Keely and Cole, and in his effective use of one of the simplest of scene transition devices — a light that goes off and comes on again, signaling the passage of time.

Longacre and his cast overcome the limits of an incredibly small stage (and some of the most uncomfortable chairs for theater in the entire community) to bring forth a transcendent production.