RORY FLYNN as Angela, Kallie Pong as Annie in “The Messinger” (Chance Theater).

By Thom de Martino
Orange County Tribune

The message we don’t want to hear is often the one we most desperately need to.
Anaheim’s Chance Theater is now staging the West Coast premiere of a piece by one of their resident playwrights, Jenny Connell Davis – the powerful and thought-provoking “The Messenger.”

It’s the story of four women in different time periods, how the events in their lives ripple outward through time, and how history has the cruel tendency to repeat itself.

Central to the story is the real-life Hungarian-American teacher and Holocaust survivor Georgia Gabor (Juliet Fischer), as she relates some of the stories and horrors of her survival in Budapest as the Nazis came into power. Georgia is an inspiring and powerful presence, uncompromising: determined to share her tales with her students, difficult as they may be to hear, as she has for decades.

Unfortunately, this runs afoul of one student’s mother, Angela (Rori Flynn); taking place 1993, she’s already displeased at the teacher being so strict with her daughter, which is soon compounded by the stories Georgia is telling the kids. But while she’s concerned about the children being too young to hear these harrowing tales and possibly having nightmares, her backlash along with some of the other parents has unintended

consequences… ones that echo that dark past. 

Flash-forward to 2021, and the audience is introduced to Annie (Kallie Pong), a determined young Asian student at the same Huntington Middle School that Georgia taught back in 1993. However, in this post-pandemic moment, peoples of Asian descent are facing an uptick in racism… something Annie soon experiences. It becomes hard not to notice the emerging similarities between her path and the one walked by Georgia.

Flash-back to 1969 and the Huntington Library, where a young researcher, Gracie (Megan Sigler) is just settling in as the new archivist; an amazing achievement in itself, considering the constraints women in the workplace were limited by at the time. She’s earnest and charming, determined to do her best with the vast morass of archival paperwork to sort through: but when she finds a historically priceless document, she may well bump against that very glass ceiling… and some people’s desire to keep an inconvenient and uncomfortable past buried and hidden. 

Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it, and while Georgia’s stories are vital to understanding what has come before, too many just want to “move on” from the horrors of the past… and how they are tragically echoed in every time, regardless how much we may pretend otherwise.

The line between caution and  denial may be narrower than we think: some choosing to sanitize the past, rather than face discomfort, as we ignore and deny under the guise of “protecting the children” from the darker stains upon the pages of history. “The Messenger” doesn’t shy away from the truth: rather, it spotlights the amazing survival of Georgia Gabor and the personal trauma she endured, during one of the darkest periods in history.
Fischer is remarkable in her portrayal of Gabor – whether it’s shooting a steely glare at a student’s mother, or in the quiet moments of her tale to her students, when the memories of the childhood she lost and the atrocities she experienced haunt her eyes.

While Angela (1993) could be simply attributed as an antagonist in the tale, in Flynn’s hands she becomes almost a sympathetic figure: her overprotectiveness and denial, as arguably misplaced as they may be, come from a place of love for her daughter – and her desire to give her the happier childhood she herself never experienced.

The troubling echoes of the past reverberate in Annie’s life in 2021, and Pong gives a moving performance as the young woman grappling with the standard teenage drama over grades and peer rivalries, upended in an instant by the ignorance of a racist passerby. Her confusion and her struggles to understand why are heartbreaking to watch, as the parallels to Georgia’s experience become painfully clearer.

Sigler’s Gracie (1969) at first may appear to be an anomaly in the story, as the audience might wonder how she relates to the tale: but all becomes clearer with the discovery of the lost document. She’s bright and enthusiastic, with a hunger for knowledge and thrilled at the chance to rediscover history long forgotten; but that brightness dims slightly as she learns the cost of pursuing her dreams, and the sacrifice she must choose to make.

The timing in this production is impeccable – as a one-act play, the brisk pacing is steady and determined, jumping from one character and time period to another, seamlessly; and when an event happens in the life of one character, viewers should be sure and take note of the others upon the stage, as the ethereal effects are mirrored by those other players as well.

It’s also a statement on the nature of those insular communities and the cost paid by those who struggle to fit in, against the grain. Regardless of the time period, there are always “in” and “out” groups: and one of the chosen and accepted never know when they may be suddenly vilified and abandoned. It’s a wake-up call to look around us and see things how they are, not as we want them to be.

A special note about the production – viewers who stick around afterward will have the opportunity to enjoy a Q&A with the cast after the show.
Both tragic and inspiring, “The Messenger” is a timely and moving story of survival and the costs of blinding ourselves to the past… and how it inevitably catches up with us.

“The Messenger”: Juliet Fischer, Rori Flynn, Kallie Pong and Megan Sigler star in this striking and powerful story of survival and how the darker past continues its echoes into the future. Playing through April 19 at the Chance Theater, 5522 E. La Palma Ave., Anaheim 92807. Call (800) 455-4212 or visit http://www.chancetheater.com for ticketing info. Some adult language and content.