Theater lovers must consider the following an exhortation. In the diadem of San Diego’s theatrical tiara there are many jewels. Readers know of La Jolla Playhouse and the Old Globe, but the writer feels compelled once more to remind readers of other gems to be found in the area’s smaller budget theaters. Of particular note is Carlsbad’s New Village Arts (NVA), founded five years ago by Francis Gercke and Kristianne Kurner, graduates of New York’s Actors Studio Drama School.Currently, NVA triumphs with Adam Rapp’s “Nocturne,” playing through May 27. Core ensemble member Joshua Everett Johnson, who played the title role in NVA’s recent “Playboy of the Western World,” stages the off-Broadway hit. Kurner creates sets and costumes and Ginger Harris a spectacular lighting scheme. Gercke portrays The Son, whose first, chilling words are “Fifteen years ago I killed my sister.”Unfolding over 15 years, “Nocturne” is a masterful exploration of extended and convoluted grief as it affects each survivor: Son, Father (George Soete) and Mother (Kathryn Herbruck). Despite the presence of other actors, including Johnson as the youthful Son and Monique Fleming as a red-haired New Yorker, all are mere shadows save Gercke, who is the storyteller.Rapp’s poetic and sometimes rapturous words provide dazzling landscapes, internal and external, as the Son tells of the ghastly event and its aftermath. Three people are crushed by grief, unable to communicate or to comfort one another.Enough time has gone by that the adult man, damaged as he is, through the very act of telling the story to those gathered in the dark, begins to pick through the past and to realize, along with us, how he might possibly pick up the pieces of his life. To Rapp’s credit, he does not wrap up those means, but merely suggests the possibility of hope for a protagonist we have come to love.Gercke delivers a deep and still performance of this haunting and gentle play, allowing each who listens time to breathe, then and in the hours that follow.”Nocturne” continues at 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, and 7 p.m. Sunday, with 2 p.m. matinees on May 14 and 21, at the Studio Space at Jazzercise, Inc. 2460 Impala Drive, Carlsbad. Tickets are $20 ($18 seniors, students military). For tickets and information, visit www.newvillagearts.org or call (760) 433-3245.
