A Kind Shot
Barrow Group Studio Theatre
Snapshot Review: An Engaging Journey
Jacquelyn Claire, Reviewer

We’re in exquisite memoir territory with Terri Mateer as she coaches us through her life’s upheavals and celebrations with humor and heart. She is a consummate storyteller with a mighty presence. Terri is a striking 6’1” blonde, ex-pro basketball playing bombshell, model, architect, actress and activist. Her story is devastating and necessary. With the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements gaining traction, this is an important contribution towards helping women find their line in the sand. A Kind Shot takes us on a hectic journey where you sometimes forget to breathe.
We grow up with her in a household of “hippiedom” and exploration. Her father, a fighter pilot, dies when Terri is four and the African American boarder, Ike, steps in as a surrogate. He teaches her how to play basketball giving her a skill that awards her with opportunities to study and a lifelong passion for the sport. Basketball becomes the thread that links the various episodes of her life – many of which are punctuated by sexual misconduct on the part of friends, colleagues and bosses. She has grown up not knowing how to put up boundaries and is often surprised by what gets “thrust” upon her. Each of these incidents are clothed in the right words that hit you hard in the solar plexus. Her shots always find the net. We journey with her to Florida, France, New York and Chicago as she unpacks her defining moments of self growth thanks to difficult and dangerous circumstances.
Mateer has crafted a vital text with dramaturgy assistance from Lee Brock and Seth Barrish. It’s an engaging journey that touches on so many issues in it’s fast flowing, “alley oop” optimistic telling. It never becomes indulgent or sentimental but is rather a series of well executed dunks at high speed. It will be an enduring work that can be performed for many years to come as the messages inherent in the text needs to be heard by every generation.
Terri Mateer is an impressive talent. The show is peppered with a robust physicality. From bounding around the stage ‘court’ shooting hoops to a strip tease gone wrong at an acting class she is unafraid to push her body to its limits. She has a giant presence, not just in height but in soul. She makes a real connection with the audience from the get go. There is a talkback session following every performance but she had us all talking on her entrance. She encourages an immediate feeling of ease and trust. Audience members were vociferous in their insistence that this show needed to be seen by high school and college students across the country. I concur. It’s so honest, raw and energizing that it makes your inner feminist foxtrot.
It’s such a perfect combination of brilliant acting, detailed physicality, hard-hitting text and uplifting personal triumphs. I wish it a very long life.
Running time: 75 minutes
A Kind Shot plays through February 25, 2018 at The Barrow Group Studio Theatre 312 W.36th 3rd floor.
For more information and ticket, click HERE

© Copyright 2018 by Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Ubuntu Linux.