STAGE REVIEW : Suffering the Pain of Abortion Choices

The unnamed woman who ties the two parts of writer-director Betsy Thomas’ “Choices” together at the Play Box Theatre appears to us in reverse time, and, when we first see her, actress Kathryn Kelly seems to wear the weight of a past choice that we have yet to hear.

The central choice is an abortion of such pain that it doesn’t sound much better than the coat hanger-style operations of yore. The subsequent flashback blunts her unforgiving approach to her current boyfriend, whose vote for Bush seriously reduces him in her view. She has come to the pro-choice position through pain, and Thomas’ actors (Vincent Ventresca and Brendan Smith as the men) work in the intimate space with a dynamic that makes the pain felt.