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Slow Children Playing

nytheatre.com review by Rachel Macklin
August 15, 2005

With a warm, easy smile on a hot August night, Anna Marie Agniel tells us to slow down. Only by slowing down will we be able to truly understand the world of Slow Children Playing, Agniel’s solo performances piece about her sister, Mary Kate.As an infant, Agniel’s sister, Mary Kate, was diagnosed with Isodicentric 15, a chromosome abnormality. In short, she is developmentally disabled, but as Agniel soon shows us, these mental weaknesses do not dampen the often comically unique idiosyncrasies of Mary Kate. The piece is presented as one long monologue broken up by occasional voiceovers of Agniel describing a particular event or moment in Mary Kate’s life. Within this monologue we also catch a glimpse of Agniel herself, as well as the rest of her family.Agniel is a fine actor who pulls us into her sister’s environment with beautiful precision and focus. She does not merely imitate Mary Kate, which would be a disservice. Instead, she constructs her sister intricately with her own body: her mannerisms, speech patterns, and thought process reveal a woman with good-natured wit and charm whose struggles are real and poignant. Even Mary Kate’s voice is a vast departure from Agniel’s own, and we have to listen carefully to catch every word. Yet, as with any foreign dialect or language, it slowly becomes familiar to our ears and we begin to enjoy its strange musicality.Agniel consistently reintroduces the definition of the word “slow” into the piece, a motif that I felt was unnecessary after its initial reading because the meaning was quite clear. Occasionally, I was unsure why she had chosen to show us certain moments and felt that the progression of Mary Kate’s story could have been more strongly shaped. However, her goal seems to be to give us a sincere portrayal of her likewise brutally honest sister, striving to take us beyond her condition and connect with the hopes, desires and dreams we all share. She succeeds admirably with Slow Children Playing.