REVIEW: Ayvazian's HIGH DIVE at the Vortex

High Dive by Leslie Ayvazian at the Vortex Theatre,
July 20 – August 5, 2007,
by Linda Lopez McAlister

It’s August, 1998, in a resort hotel near the Aegean Sea in Greece and it’s 112 degrees. An Armenian-American woman, Leslie, is in crisis. She’s standing on the high dive platform while her husband, son and hotel guests watch. Two things terrify her: the thought of jumping into the pool and the thought that she’s turning 50 in just three weeks.

That’s the initial moment of Leslie Ayvazian’s delightful one-woman play that opens tonight at the Vortex Theatre in Albuquerque (because of other commitments, I attended the final dress rehearsal). It leads to one of the most enjoyable evenings in the theater you can imagine. For one thing, even though it is a “one-woman show,” it has a very large cast—members of the audience who, before the show, are given scripts and lines to read at the appropriate time. They are augmented by three members of the “ensemble” who “play” Leslie’s husband, son, and various others from their seats in the theater. This audience-participation adds enormously to the fun and camaraderie of the evening, blurring the line between stage and audience.

Leslie will do anything to avoid the decision to jump off that high dive, so what she does is end up telling us, basically, her whole life story—including her previous disastrous vacation trips with her husband who loves to travel (she doesn’t), her checkered and hilarious work history, and her relationships with various family members.

Leslee Richards gives a wonderfully warm and winning performance as Leslie. She’s very funny in the way she recounts these stories and very believable when her fear of heights and fear of aging, and fear of what people will think of her grabs her and pulls her back to the present moment. Director Tish Miller has found all the nuances in the piece and made sure that the material is played for all it’s worth, moving things along briskly and in a way that keeps the audience entranced and rooting for Leslie (and Leslee).

Does she jump? Or not? I won’t tell you. But I will tell you that, in the end, both of the things that terrified her at the outset come to a very satisfactory resolution.