"Atoms, Motion and the Void," might just be writing and storytelling at its finest. Currently staged at Portsmouth's Player's Ring through Jan. 6, the gravely voiced, one-man soliloquy wraps you in brilliance and shows you your own light.

One only need listen to the first few lines to recognize something amazing or awful is about to become you.

"You may remember, or have heard of, the Antioch twins. They were born in 1940 in a particularly fierce dime-store Christian hysteria that saw the Lord in tingly fogs in bakery windows, or beheld the Mother Mary in a lumpy sculpture of meat stew."

New Hampshire Public Radio fans will no doubt recognize the title and the main character, Sherwin Sleeves. Sleeves is the brainchild of author, actor and voyeur of mankind Sean Hurley. In this particular suspenseful "episode" the audience travels with Sleeves through a metamorphosis of soulful sorts; his own.

As a sensitive child, Sleeves performs a random act of heroism in Act I. When he grows up, he loses that sense of romanticism and becomes a somewhat underwhelming sort of man.

As he ripens, he chooses to live his life void of any pleasure, content to punish himself for never quite measuring up. To what standard, I don't think Sleeves knows.

Our protagonist then gets a second chance at being happy in Act II. Strike that; a chance at becoming utterly and unabashedly at peace.

But, not with himself.

No, Sleeves is allowed to become someone else when that someone else, becomes him. Gone is his guilt, gluttony and everything that has ever made him morose.

Herein lays the greater truth or duality of the story. It is only by gaining perspective on the lull and lows of his own life literally from observing from the outside which Sleeves begins to appreciate what he isn't, doesn't do or can't grasp. Through death he gains life. Hurley begins to let go of the expectations he has of himself, others and even his God.



He does so without palaver for Sleeves or the audience. But what really makes the fantastical magical in "Atoms, Motion and the Void" is Hurley's connection to his elemental human self. His voice permeates the soul. His musical interludes, the spirit; his storyteller's aura, the mind.

The script is an erotic feast for vocabulary and diction connoisseurs.

Rich with imagery and metaphors and musical cadence, each scene brings hue to color and empathy to emotion.

Hurley speaks of the universe as "a slow collision of very big things," his heroic self as, "a ball of black honey fire jumping out a second-floor window," and his essence as part of the "organic rhapsody" of all essence.

Amid the lush story there were however, a few staging and directorial miscues that were, one hopes, only a part of opening night uncertainties. Most notable were the stagnant blocking and slow musical transitions. While any more than one performer in this show would be too much, the space seemed too big at times for Hurley to command easily.

He also seemed uncertain of the three-quarter setting, often going several scenes before acknowledging side audiences. And while the set was lavishly appointed by Player's Ring standards, Hurley barely interacted with it or its masterfully chosen contents.

The (very) slow rising lights, canned music and revelatory volume in the final scene neutered the honest absolution our elder hero had earned. Perhaps if the "illumination" came from an internal source less would indeed prove to be more.

In Hurley's intimate misery one feels safe to acknowledge his own. In his transformation you can find hope and guidance and perspective. In the end one is left with a sense of fulfillment or perhaps fullness in the face of nothing. Sherwin Sleeves leaves you centered on the dawn of a new year.

That's not such a bad place to be.

3 stars.

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**** stand in the aisle

*** sit in front

** sit in the back

* get a drink

(Scoring scale and interpretation borrowed from London theater critic, Blanche Marvin.)

Tamara Le can be reached at showcaserevieweryahoo.com.