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That's clear from the opening scene, too, in which three lithe, leggy models (Allegra Rose Edwards, Chelsea Nicolle Fryer, and Nina Ordman) strut around the stage in wild-animal getups so outlandish they almost look plausible (if not outright likely). We're talking antelopes, scorpions, vipers, that kind of thing, all of which are rendered by costume designer Jenny Foldenauer with an acidic sense of humor and a keen eye for the absurd that only the world of high fashion could ever accept as germane to humanity. So stirring is the effect, in fact, that when a later parade of regular clothes for regular women appears, they almost look—well, out of place. They're supposed to, for what it's worth, at least in some way. The universe Callaghan has created for Everything You Touch, which director Jessica Kubzansky has brought to vivid life, is one in which everyone is defined, positively or negatively, by the skins they present to the world. Sometimes this is actual clothes, sometimes it's a few extra pounds, more often still it's a state of mind. But the characters in the play is fighting against someone else's worse perceptions (and, not infrequently, less than the best of their own) to the point that the models are even conscripted as water coolers, gumball machines, telephones, computer keyboards, and so on. In one way or another, we all objectify someone who'll have to pay the price for our shortsightedness. This lesson is primarily forwarded by a thirtysomething woman named Jess (Miram Silverman), who's long lived wrapped in the disapproval of the mother she hasn't seen in more than a decade. Tortured by friends and family about her weight, and with Mom herself wrapped up in the modeling world, Jess has major body issues that her mother's imminent death is now yanking to the service. As Jess begins a pilgrimage to visit her mother one more time before the end, we leap back to the early 1970s to see how similar issues conflicted British fashion scion Victor Cavanaugh (Christian Coulson), his exotic muse and bedmate Esme (Tonya Glanz), and Louella (Lisa Kitchens), the Little Rock refugee who's in Manhattan for the first time after winning tickets for a "VIP fashion treatment" with Victor. Callaghan switches frequently between the eras, using Victor as a bridge: The free spirit that threatens to pull apart the earlier world might be just what Jess needs to push her life back together. The precise nature of Victor and Jess's relationship will be revealed in due course—as will a few major family secrets—but self-image and self-doubt have factored into all their lives from day one, and it's not infrequent that those who are the most beautiful-looking on the outside are the most screwed up on the inside. And whether Jess will ever find what she's looking for, let alone acknowledge (and return) the affections from the coding colleague she leaves behind, Lewis (Robbie Tan), is itself not exactly in question. For these reasons, Everything You Touch is not particularly deep, and you shouldn't expect to learn much from it. But, as we've established, style matters, and, in the physical production (Francois-Pierre Couture did the cubist set, Jeremy Pivnick the lights) as well as the dialogue, it's all been fluffed up to perfection. Take, for example, Jess's description of one of Victor's signature designs: "You said you wanted to make a dress that looked like autumn and spilled mimosa and butt-sex and her laughter." Or Victor's explanation of the execution of the final dress and his own artistic philosophy: "Her posture has to be straight as a blade or she'll get speared in the ribs.... She must be rail thin for it to work.... If she had killer cans or a big, dumpy bottom, would you be interested in the clothes at all? Fashion is about self-denial and sacrifice. One must let oneself wither. Give into the death instinct." Or how Victor dresses down a model after she trips during a show: "You sleep in a sleigh bed at night, upholstered in a chintz of deep pink cabbage roses garlanded with blue ribbon and outlined with sage fringing. You eat rose and violet creams in it and read Barbara Cartland romances. The person I'm looking for slumbers on a metal grate under a tarp of nails and eats leather and roots and feces." Because this speech is so ingrained in the characters' minds, and because the actors navigate so utterly naturally, it never feels as though Callaghan is stretching for a laugh or reaching to make a point about the corrosive environment that's consuming them. No one handles it better than Coulson, whose equally suave and scummy Victor is a wretched joy to behold, but Glanz's death glares and bland but lacerating delivery makes her Esme almost as deliciously vicious. And it's fun to watch how Kitchens presides over Louella's morals melting and how Silverman projects Jess's tortured state as the ultimate beneficiary of the game playing that long preceded her. The evening would be better if there were more reason to care more about Jess's journey, and if the characters' calloused outer coatings more easily parted to reveal the anguished souls they're desperate to repair. But if Everything You Touch is determined to stick so close to the surface, it's to its extreme benefit that its surface couldn't possibly look better.
Everything You Touch
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