REVIEW: ATLANTIS - Intimate Theatre in an Unexpected Sanctuary

Theatre doesn't get more intimate than this. Thirty or so audience members seated casually in a converted bank vault, watching three actors perform in the corner of the small space. It feels less like attending a show and more like being invited into someone's living room for an unexpectedly profound conversation about truth, belief, and the stories we tell ourselves to survive.

Paul Gilchrist's Atlantis, receiving a fresh production nearly a decade after its 2016 Sydney Fringe premiere, launches subtlenuance's MICRO-nuance initiative with appropriate modesty and ambition. The premise remains deceptively simple: couple Sarah and Tom, both facing personal and professional crises, seek refuge with Sarah's somewhat strange aunt Zelda at her secluded retreat. What unfolds is a sharp examination of how we construct meaning in our lives and whether those constructions constitute wisdom or delusion.

The Vault at KXT provides an unexpectedly perfect setting for this exploration. The former bank vault's secure, enclosed atmosphere mirrors the psychological territory the play navigates: private spaces where we store our most valuable beliefs and most dangerous truths. The casual seating arrangement and corner staging create almost salon-like intimacy that transforms audience members from passive observers into inadvertent witnesses to a family reckoning.

Veronica Clavijo brings quite the volcanic intensity to Sarah, that character being an aspiring actress whose career and life are simultaneously imploding. Her skepticism toward aunt Zelda's New Age philosophy feels rooted in genuine pain rather than mere cynicism. This is someone whose mother's funeral Zelda didn't attend, whose resentment has calcified over years. Clavijo navigates Sarah's journey from defensive hostility to something more complex with admirable restraint, never pushing for easy emotional resolutions.

Jimmy Hazelwood's Tom operates as the production's most immediately sympathetic figure despite being a drug dealer whose problems with suppliers have precipitated the couple's flight. Hazelwood finds surprising depth in what could be a simple rough-trade archetype, creating a character whose desire to be Sarah's hero conflicts painfully with his awareness of his own fundamental flaws. His original music is featured in the prelude, and this establishes some atmospheric groundwork while showcasing talents beyond acting.

Sylvia Marie's Zelda faces the production's most challenging task: embodying New Age entrepreneurship without reducing the character to caricature. Marie largely succeeds, finding comfort in Zelda's reinvention from Mandy to spiritual guru while suggesting genuine belief beneath the commercial veneer. Her performance acknowledges that charging money for crystals and dream catchers doesn't automatically invalidate the comfort they might provide.

Gilchrist's script, rich with sharp observations about appropriation, spiritual capitalism, and acting's paradoxes, works best when it trusts its own intelligence. The playwright's program note about Thomas Jefferson and "self-evident truths" frames the play's central question elegantly: are the stories we tell ourselves inspirations or delusions? The production suggests both, simultaneously, which feels more honest than choosing sides.

The intimate scale forces certain theatrical compromises. Physical movement remains limited by space constraints, while emotional crescendos must be calibrated for proximity that would make theatrical shouting absurd. Yet these limitations also create advantages. Every subtle facial expression registers, every pause carries weight, every moment of genuine connection between performers feels immediately present.

The production's sparse aesthetic (minimal set dressing, simple lighting, no elaborate technical elements) aligns perfectly with MICRO-nuance's stated mission of presenting "beautiful pieces in unexpected places at affordable prices." This is theatre stripped to essentials: good writing, committed performances, and willing audiences sharing a confined space for around 60 minutes of exploration.

What Atlantis offers isn't easy answers about spirituality, relationships, or self-determination. Instead, it provides space, literal and metaphorical, for considering how we choose the narratives that shape our lives. In The Vault's peculiar intimacy, watching three people negotiate their competing truths, the play's questions become audience questions: What stories do we tell ourselves? Do they serve us or trap us? And how do we distinguish between wisdom and wishful thinking?

This is theatre as conversation rather than proclamation, performed in a space that makes such conversation feel natural and necessary.

Atlantis continues at The Vault, KXT on Broadway through November 17.
Tickets and more info: https://events.humanitix.com/underground-atlantis

(images: Syl Marie Photography)