Bartell Theatre's latest play, ""Ugly Ducklings,"" directed by Jan Levine Thal and written by Carolyn Gage, is like a reenactment of all those exciting, innocent and youthful days at overnight summer camp—but with a serious twist. Camp Fernlake, the fictional camp in Maine where ""Ugly Ducklings"" takes place, is an all-girls camp where many of the girls discover and come to terms with their lesbian identities.
Lisa (Emma Lehker), an 8-year-old camper, has a crush on Toni (Marian Herzog), a tomboyish 12-year-old camper. Toni has a crush on Angie (Andrea Kleiner), one of the camp counselors who is interested in and curious about Renee (Riley), an out lesbian counselor. Then there is Charlotte (Heather Renken), the closeted lesbian camp director, who seems to have a stifled crush on Vanessa (Ana Gundlach), the boyfriend-obsessed counselor and token straight character.
With all of its romantic entanglements, the storyline comes together when Lisa suffers an embarrassing moment that propels her to attempt to sacrifice herself to the (fictional) monster that lives in the camp's lake. Ultimately, the resolution of this incident ties all the action together well. The monster, which serves as a secondary storyline to the play, is an appropriate and important symbol of the fear, which is finally put to rest, of lesbianism at the camp.
Carolyn Gage wrote ""Ugly Ducklings"" after reading about two 16-year-old girls who had met, fallen in love at summer camp and committed suicide together after being continually harassed about their sexual orientations.
While the play focuses on lesbians and does, at times, comes off as man-hating, Thal's production is worth seeing. The actresses are well-cast in their roles and they successfully connect with the audience. More importantly, there are moments in the show that are laugh-out-loud funny. There are humorous gems for anyone to appreciate, regardless of gender or sexual orientation.
The humor, which is perfectly balanced with the seriousness of the play, is what makes ""Ugly Ducklings"" work. Gage's theatrical genius is in the fact that she was able to write a play about a clichAcd topic (summer camp) take that topic, make it unique (young lesbians coming out at summer camp) and have it be both funny and impacting at the same time.
