Amanda Jensen as Marjorie threatens to execute her attacker Raul (Max Blonde) as Aimé Kelly and Melissa Whitney look on in Extremities



The Extremities set design by Elizabeth Young had to contain a fireplace large enough and sturdy enough to act as a jail cell for Raul, when Marjorie locks him in there using her bicycle (behind the tv set) as a fence. Raul spends a majority of the play inside the fireplace.

EXTREMITIES

The first play ever produced by the Twilight Repertory Theatre was William Mastrosimone’s Extremities, a powerful drama about an attempted rape and its aftermath. The play was presented in April and May of 2007 at Theatre!Theater! on SE Belmont Street in Portland.
Twilight Repertory (known then as the New Group Theatre Company) produced the play in part to foster discussion of rape and rape prevention in the Portland community. Sunday matinees were followed by discussion groups and a presentation by local rape prevention groups.
Mastrosimone wrote his play after meeting a woman, whom he called Mary, who had been raped by a man who was later set free and promised to come back and “get her.” In crafting the play, he wanted to set up a domestic version of the trial and its aftermath. When Raul attempts to rape Marjorie in her own home during the late morning, she is able to subdue him and chains him into the large fireplace in her old farmhouse in the country. When her roommates come home, they want to call the police, but Marjorie has no proof and Raul has promised to come back and kill them all if he gets away. It is the confrontation between Marjorie and her roommates that constitutes the heart and soul of the play.
In our production we attempted to make the attempted rape and its aftermath as visceral as possible, to give the audience a sense of how awful such an experience could be. Although some theatre goers found the subject matter too gruesome, no one left theatre unaffected.

The cast for Extremities included:
Amanda Jensen as Marjorie
Max Blonde as Raul
Aimé Kelly as Patricia
Melissa Whitney as Terry

Extremities was directed by John Duncan
Set Design by Elizabeth Young
Lighting Design by Max Blonde
Stage Managed by Jared McClain
Publicity by Win Goodbody