By MATTHEW MEYER | Reporter
Palisades Charter High School’s fall play opens a two-weekend run this evening, with an unusually small cast of eight PaliHi students presenting Sam Shepard’s heart wrenching 1985 drama, “A Lie of the Mind.” The play—originally an off-Broadway production starring Harvey Keitel and Amanda Plummer—confronts the ugly consequences of domestic violence.
The play begins directly after Jake (Samuel Korobkin) severely beats his wife Beth (Mikaela Aularoloe), and follows the lives of each of their families as they cope with the aftermath. Family dysfunction abounds, as it quickly becomes clear that members of each family have unhealthy methods of dealing with the dismal reality.
“It’s not every day that you get to experience characters as flawed as these and are forced to show their inner demons so often,” said Skyler Kirkpatrick, who portrays Jake’s brother Frankie. “It requires the actors to really think about each and every word they say and why they say it.”
Despite the heavy emotions that dominate the play, moments of levity contribute a comedic dynamic to the nuanced performance. “There are moments of humor in between the anger, sadness and insanity,” Korobkin said.
“A Lie of the Mind” runs Thursday through Saturday, Oct. 27-29, and the following weekend, Nov. 3-5. All performances are at 7 p.m. in Mercer Hall on PaliHi’s campus. Tickets are available at Mercer Hall before each performance and online at brownpapertickets.com.
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