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Inner
Critics
By
Kathy Ceceri
The
Unexpected Man
By Yasmina Reza, directed by Patrick Bonavitacola
Main
Street Stage, North Adams, Mass., through May 7
Two strangers sit together in a compartment on the train from
Paris to Frankfurt. He is a famous author working on what
he vows will be his last book. And she is one of his most
devoted readers. While the author broods about a case of constipation,
a colleague’s Japanese girlfriend, and the likely decline
of his literary powers, the woman recalls debating his books’
merits with a recently departed male friend and wonders whether
to pull her copy of his latest novel out of her bag. Both
are middle-aged, well-dressed, and, as we soon learn, quite
intellectual, but neither of them will take the initiative
to start a conversation for nearly two-thirds of the 90-minute
play. Instead, they direct their comments to us, the audience,
in a series of alternating monologues so demanding they practically
leave the theatergoer gasping for air.
Comments about Ex-Lax and bran aside, rarely do we see two
characters talking almost exclusively about ideas. (Picture
My Dinner with Andre done completely in voiceovers.)
Written by Yasmina Reza, the French-Jewish author of Art,
the surprise Broadway hit about abstract painting, The
Unexpected Man is yet another indication that we are not
as smart as we like to think we are on this side of the Atlantic.
Watching it can make you feel a little like a kid eavesdropping
on the grownups’ conversation. Yet the play does have a resonance
for the rest of us. In the famous author’s almost comical
fear of getting older (he’s on his way to meet, and tell off,
the much older man his daughter wants to marry), in the woman’s
loneliness for her late companion (a friendship that endured
despite their marriages to others) are the universal worries
that accompany the passage of years, no matter what our opinion
of Schumann—assuming we have any.
Main Street Stage cofounder and newly appointed artistic director
Bruce T. McDonald plays the writer, Paul Parsky, with such
immediacy that it’s hard to keep from responding out loud
to his rhetorical questions, especially in the closeness of
the 48-seat theater. Parsky is self-centered, misogynistic,
and petty, toting up the slights given him by his friends
and dreaming up demeaning scenarios for them. McDonald doesn’t
try to make him likable, but some sympathy for Parsky does
manage to creep in nonetheless. Lynn H. Wood has no previous
acting experience, but spent a year working on the piece with
McDonald, both with director Bonavitacola’s input and on their
own. Her strongly accented Martha seems so independent, yet
believes she is less interesting than people like Parsky because
she refuses to be cynical; she loves life. Martha hesitates
to talk to her favorite novelist, even though she has so much
to ask him and believes in his talent so deeply. Wood makes
us root for the writer to drop his self-absorbed inner ramblings
for a minute and notice her, and for Martha to gather up her
courage and finally make the first move. Both actors have
complete mastery of their characters. Though foreign in more
than one sense, Parsky and Martha are real people with problems
that will seem familiar to us, even if we have to pay closer
attention to what they’re saying than we’re used to.
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Now
You See Him . . .
The
Invisible Man
By H.G. Wells, Adapted by P.W. Meineck, directed by Robert
Richmond
The
Aquila Theatre Company, Proctor’s Theatre, April 6
Although written in 1897, H.G. Wells’ novel The Invisible
Man has an almost frighteningly modern sentiment. Griffin,
the mad scientist who discovers a formula that makes flesh
disappear, finds other people a major annoyance. His innkeeper,
Mrs. Hall, stops bringing him meals even though he’s told
her he’s expecting some money soon; Mr. Marvel, the tramp
who’s supposed to help him sneak out of town, betrays him.
If this were a 21st-century story, Griffin would be running
slower drivers off the road in his invisible SUV and causing
chaos in the supermarket by making people’s cellphones fly
out of their hands mid- sentence. But while you can certainly
sympathize with his feelings, Griffin is not a sympathetic
character. There isn’t anybody he would spare. At the same
time, he uses his extraordinary advantage over other mortals
for trivial ends: robbing houses, terrorizing small country
towns. And running around naked in the dank English night
has given him a cold. In the end, the Invisible Man is neither
master evil-doer nor misunderstood genius: He’s just a maladjusted
chemist with a lot of bad luck. It’s this sorry protagonist
who appears in the Aquila Theatre Company’s nicely dramatic,
if at times a bit thin, adaptation of Wells’ horror classic.
On an all-black, dimly lit set, with only a few pieces of
suggestive multi-purpose scenery, Aquila’s stark production
was decidedly spooky. At the same time, the New York-based
troupe wisely took a page from the 1930s Claude Rains film
by turning Wells’ mockingly portrayed townsfolk into comic
characters who water down the booze and listen at keyholes.
As the actors explained afterward to the schoolday audience,
director Richmond and company looked to silent movies and
radio to come up with their storytelling style, using pantomime,
mechanical movements, and the occasional sound effect to convey
the action. Composer Anthony Cochrane worked along with the
actors to develop a silent-movie-type soundtrack which helped
set the eerie mood. Some dialogue was hard to hear, and some
scenes sped by too quickly—anyone who hadn’t read the book
may have had trouble sorting out the characters (25 minutes
had been cut for the student show), but the ensemble of young
actors were smoothly directed and worked well together. Louis
Butelli as Griffin, Lindsay Rae Taylor as Mrs. Hall and Lincoln
Hudson as Marvel were particularly fine.
The much-heralded “tricks” used to make the Invisible Man
invisible were standard theatrical devices, such as Kabuki-style
black coverings and a big coat pulled over the actor’s head.
But for my money the Invisible Man was even scarier when he
was covered head to toe. Dressed, his potential for mayhem
had yet to be released. It was when he revealed his invisibility
that his ultimate vulnerability became apparent as well.
—Kathy
Ceceri
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