Review of Babes with Blades' Patchwork Drifter

Once upon a time I went to a show and it was called Patchwork Drifter. It was by Jennifer L. Mickelson and directed by Leigh Barrett. It was about this family: Harriet (Delia Ford), the mother, and Martha (Eliza Rose Fichter)and Abigail (Zoe Shiman) who are her daughters. They live in Wyoming and an unexpected visitor comes to the door. Her name is Emmy (Meredith Rae Lyons) and she comes and they hire her to help them out with their sewing and work. But unfortunately Harriet, their mother, has some secrets. And one of those secrets comes knocking at her door and is not very "cooperative." And over time all the secrets of the other characters come out too. This show is about family, acceptance, and secrets.

I think that Emmy is a really great character and one of the reasons she is so great is that she has a really amazing backstory that is discovered over time. And as you see the characters around her catching on to her secrets, it just gets more and more suspenseful. I think it is great that Babes with Blades did this show because it is such an amazing female character. There are so many clues about who she really is that are fun to discover. You found her lovable even though she was very suspicious. When she was with the character Abigail, she was so good with her but you were still worried that she might try to hurt her. But then you also see that she is very calm and collected when Hannah (Elyse Dawson) starts insulting her when they are both in the same situation.

I feel like the fight scenes (by JK Choreography) were so crazy amazing. I always love their fights and I still loved them this time. There weren't as many as usual, but one of them would be good enough because it was still amazing. This isn't a really fight-y play. There is a fight or two but it is mostly about suspense. It was so suspenseful leading up to the big shootout, because you knew something was going to happen but you didn't know exactly when. So it was kind of like a jump scare. I liked the moment when they turned over the table and started shooting over it because it seemed like what somebody would actually do in a fight--turning it over because that would be good cover. But of course it isn't perfect cover because a table would still be able to be shot through, but it was the best they had. The circumstances are not at the best for these women, but they are still going to do their best with what they have...and try to kill each other!

Although there were some very good parts, there were also parts I felt like made a little less sense than they should have. I found the ending quite confusing. I felt like the next-to-last scene made more sense as an ending than the actual ending. I think with the actual ending they were trying to show that one of the characters got to be with the person that they loved, but the thing was that another character was now living with that character and in the scene before you thought they'd never see each other again. It just didn't make any sense for them to see each other again, and I felt like the story did not really explain what had happened. I also thought they didn't always use pauses in a good way. I think pauses are very useful on stage when a character has to process something or the audience has to process something that the audience didn't know could occur. Sometimes they would use pauses that way, but sometimes it would just be just to go and grab a kettle and I think sometimes the lines could have been said while the character was getting the kettle.

People who would like this show are people who like suspenseful gunfights, amazing female characters, and women trying their best to kill each other. I think people should go see this show. I felt like it was a pretty powerful story and I liked it.

Photos: Steve Townshend