Review: Dry Land

The turbulent waters of friendship are explored in Ruby Rae Spiegel’s hard-hitting and moving new play Dry Land, now playing at the HERE Arts Center in a Colt Coeur production. The play mostly takes place in the girls’ locker room of a high school in Florida, and centers on two high school swimmers, Amy (Sarah Mezzanotte) and Ester (Tina Ivlev). At the top of the play, Amy asks Ester to “punch me again”. Ester is concerned with the bruises her blows could inflict, but Amy is insistent. During the conversation that follows, which is punctuated by punches to Amy’s stomach, we eventually find out that Amy is pregnant. Desperate to abort the baby as soon as possible, she has enlisted the help of Ester to terminate the unwanted pregnancy.