October 27, 2014
By Raymond Rehayem
A crafty, circular interplay of “play” and “staging of play”—wherein the director of the show becomes increasingly dictatorial and the participants become increasingly divorced from any solid understanding of the line between reality and fiction, between their own will and the will of their leader...what unfolds connects the structures of two different sorts of leadership (political, or artistic), their manipulated inner circles, and the impact on the masses (society as a whole, or the audience). “Flowers” focuses on the risks of speaking one’s mind in a world where your own mind may be perplexingly subsumed by groupthink. The reliance on multimedia through frequent use of video projection, jarring lighting and sound cues, and quick and substantial set changes must pose notable challenges, but to the credit of director Joanie Schultz and crew, you wouldn’t know it from this adept production. The performances are fine, with Melissa Canciller and Karmann Bajuyo excelling at the center of the revolving narrative.