Twice Told Tales: 'The K of D'

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PLAYWRIGHT LAURA SCHELLHARDT says there are real differences between a ghost story and an urban legend.

"An urban legend is really my generation's ghost story," she says. "There are some certain rules to them, but one of the rules is that an urban legend doesn't happen to you. You don't tell it about yourself."

Schellhardt's play "The K of D," now running at the Woolly Mammoth Theatre, is a one-woman show featuring a speaker who relates the events surrounding a girl in a small, spooky Ohio town during a mysterious summer. Woolly Mammoth company member Kimberly Gilbert plays a total of 16 characters, but the dominant voice is that of a girl who watched it all happen.

The story goes like this: Charlotte McGraw and her twin brother, Jamie, were inseparable throughout their childhood, even speaking their own language of whistles and clicks. One day, after kissing her brother goodbye near the bus stop, Jamie is struck and killed by a careless driver.

Charlotte, who stops speaking in mourning for her brother, receives a strange, supernatural ability after the accident. This ability soon becomes the subject of gossip and speculation among the neighborhood kids, who are skeptical, but excited, about its possibilities.

Throughout the play, Gilbert fluidly switches characters through changes in tone, accent, posture and a variety of other cues. In addition to the unnamed girl who does most of the narration, the personas Gilbert inhabits include the trash-talking Quisp Drucker, flakey Steffi Post, nerdy Brent Hoffman as well as the villainous Johnny Whistler, whose arrival in town sets the real action of the play into motion.

Schellhardt has high praise for Gilbert's high-energy, complex performance.

"She has a really fine ear for characterization and a joy of performance that you really need to have to pull off an hour and a half of 16 characters," Schellhardt said. "You enjoy watching her because she's enjoying herself."

Gilbert also impressed Schellhardt with her ability to immediately identify with the narrator's character.

"It's very rare that you have an actress who realizes right off the bat that you have to ask, 'Who is the person that is speaking to the audience?'" she said. " What is she hoping to gain from the people watching?"

» Woolly Mammoth Theatre, 641 D St. NW; through Feb. 10, $18; 202-393-3939, woollymammoth.net.

Written by Express contributor Dan Miller
Photo by Stan Barouh