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A CurtainUp New Jersey Review
Come Back, Come Back, Wherever You Are
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(An outburst) Never mind that she's his sister! Never mind that he knew she resented him and loved her anyway! He trained her to landscape, he taught her how to do everything but love the plants she takes care of. He gave her a life! But she's the only one, the only person who's said anything negative about him since he died! She doesn't believe I sit her and talk with Paolo. She doesn't believe we talk at all. She doesn't believe he's here — Sara
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Alison Fraser and Shirley Knight
(Photo by T. Charles Erickso) |
In Come Back, Come Back, Wherever You Are, Sara (Alison Fraser) believes that she has found a positive way to deal with the death of her husband Paulo and move forward with her life. Having been happily married to Paulo, a landscaper, for 27 years, Sara has convinced herself that Paulo has begun talking to her a month after his death and encouraged her to return to her profession as a singer.
The play begins in a New York cabaret as Sara sings "Life is Just a Bowl of Cherries." Fraser, a two time Tony nominee (The Secret Garden; Romance/Romance) and a frequent guest star at George Street Playhouse, delivers it in an emotionally fragmented way, presumably as an indication of who Sara is and what she is going through. It's a bit unsettling, but as the play fitfully progresses we see that Sara is both haunted and hopeful.
Although Sara sees her return to singing as a part of her healing process, she remains an outsider and semi-estranged from Paulo's family who have taken over the management of Paulo's landscaping business. Paulo's grieving mother Marion (Shirley Knight), a psychiatrist, wants little or nothing to do with Sara and finds solace at home painting pictures. She doesn't seem to display much love for her husband Richard (John Carter) who does the bookkeeping, and even less for their unmarried adult daughter Michelle (Leslie Lyles), who runs the family business with a constant chip on her shoulder.
A painting of blue horses that Marion intended to give as a birthday gift to Paulo has been taken to Dougal (Jim Bracchitta), a local framer. When Dougal, who coincidently has been a long-time fan of Sara's, learns that Sara has returned to singing, he goes to hear her and maneuvers a meeting outside the stage door. Although the gregarious and ingratiating Dougal is eager to encourage a relationship, Sara is resistant to his charms and adamant about not being able to love anyone in the way she loved Paulo.
What Sara presumably wants most, besides from the opportunity for occasional sex with Dougal, is to become friends in their mutual loss with her mother-in-law. "He wanted us to like each other," Sara tells Marion. This is apparently not possible for Marion. Jealous of the love between her son and Sara, she prefers to wallow in open hostility.
As Marion, Knight (a multi-award winning actress) finds as much nuance as possible in a role that is grounded in rigidity and consigned for the most part to being morose and ill-tempered. The confrontational scenes between Sara and Marion are notable for their futility and generally tend to languish in dreary repetitive discourse. As the unloved Lesbian sibling daughter Michelle, Lyles makes the most of what little has been given her in the way of character complexity by being abrasive and expressing her resentment and disdain to each and all whenever possible.
.It is easy to say that Dougal is the only really life-affirming presence in the play and Bracchitta comes through winningly as the exuberantly undeterred suitor. Perhaps it was not a good idea for Laurents to serve as the director of this mostly dreary relatively uneventful play. Almost devoid of energy and dramatic urgency, Come Back, Come Back, Wherever You Are, slogs along at a snail's pace. Although it seems to have been written in the earnest cause of redemption, it also helplessly and hopelessly languishes in melancholia.
The production has been handsomely designed by James Youmans who has transfigured the usually three-quarter-in-the-round theater to a traditional proscenium form. The revolving stage is used to maintain the rapid change of the many short scenes that take place in the cabaret, outside the stage door, in a living room or green-house. Live musical accompaniment is expertly performed by Christopher Howatt (pianist, musical director) and Danny Stone (Bass).
Acknowledged as a resident playwright at the George Street Playhouse, Laurents has had the good fortune to see his most recent plays— Claudia Lazlo, The Vibrator, Attacks on the Heart, 2 Lives, New Year's Eve— have their world premieres here.
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Come Back, Come Back, Wherever You Are Written and directed by Arthur Laurents Cast: Alison Fraser (Sara); Jim Bracchitta (Dougal); Shirley Knight (Marion; John Carter (Richard); Leslie Lyles (Michelle) Set and Projection Design: James Youmans Lighting Design: Howell Binkley Costume Design: Esther Arroyo Sound Design: Christopher J. Bailey Musical Direction: Christopher Howatt Running Time: 90 minutes no intermission George Street Playhouse, 9 Livingston Avenue, New Brunswick, N.J. (732) 246-7717 Tickets $37.50- $71.50 Performances: Tuesday through Saturday at 8 PM; Sundays at 7 PM, Matinees Thursday, Saturday and Sunday at 2 PM. Opened 10/09/09; Ends 11/01/09 Review by Simon Saltzman based on performance 10/09/09 |
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