Center Repertory Company’s Compelling “Red Bike” Shows the World through the Eyes of an 11-Year Old Child

by Ed Brice

Center Repertory Company’s adaptation of Obie Award-winning Cuban American author Caridad Svich’s compelling play “Red Bike” examines a crumbling American dream and the economic-social-cultural divide through the eyes of an 11-year-old growing up in small-town America. Trying to determine how to belong in a divided country, a child fixes her hopes on a red bike that encompasses all the possibilities the world might have to offer. Directed by acclaimed Bay Area director Jeffrey Lo, “Red Bike” presents an imaginative performance of highly choreographed theatrical storytelling.

Bay Area theatre veterans Adrienne Kaori Walters and Amy Lizardo co-star in this production. As the play’s two characters, M (Amy Lizardo) and A (Adrienne Kaori Walters), are the two halves of that 11-year-old’s mind; they are playmates and foils, sidekicks and enemies all in one. Walters turns her lines into little gems, as if she’s always finding the quiet way to read aloud from a diary. Lizardo is very convincing, having the ability to level with audience members, and enlist them into her many moods.

“Red Bike” is quite liberated writing, reaching all over the map to fit the mood. In one moment, the audience might be inside an elaborate fantasy about training with a hard-won red bicycle for a Tour de France win one day; in the next, on a more monotonous bus ride; in a third, inside a nightmare in which “that guy” becomes a monster.

It appeared at times as though audience members, at times, find that they don’t quite understand where the characters are and what’s happening, but that doesn’t seem to be an issue. Maybe one isn’t always supposed to understand. At least audience members understand how the characters feel, and that alone is good enough.

Basically, in “Red Bike,” a single breathless bike ride can last a few moments, but cover the whole world, it surveys how a child’s town got this way. In other words, it puts a rather refreshing faith in the eyes of a child, and shows that children’s observations really do matter. While some have deemed this poignant piece “exhilarating,” “a physically, compelling ride,” and “energetic,” I would more aptly call it “imaginative.”

“Red Bike” currently performs through February 25, 2023 at the Lesher Center for the Arts (1601 Civic Dr.) in Walnut Creek, CA. For tickets ($45-$70) and more information, the public may visit LesherArtsCenter.org or call the box office at (925) 943-7469 (open Wed-Sun, 12:00pm-6:00pm).

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Photo caption: M (Amy Lizardo) and A (Adrienne Kaori Walters) are the featured performers in Center Repertory Company's "Red Bike," being presented through February 25 at Lesher Center for the Arts in Walnut Creek. (Photo Credit: Alessandra Mello)