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A CurtainUp Review
A Small Tragedy
By Elyse Sommer
Make no mistake about it, however, Mr. Lucas is using the familiar play within a play genre to deal with symphony-sized issues and the small tragedies of his chamber piece's sextet smartly and provocatively parallel the great Greek tragedy that brings them together. While Nathaniel, the pompous and often wrong-headed director and adaptor urges the actors to agree "not going to try to make the fucking play relevant as if it isn't already," Lucas smartly ignores this advice -- and does so with enough humor to make Small Tragedy as entertaining as it is thought provoking. His script cleverly has life in the 21st Century imitating the art of the 5th, and links his thespians' personal issues to national and international patterns of denial and blame placing. The play, expertly staged by Mark Wing-Davey, starts straightforwardly enough with auditions held in a Cambridge rehearsal studio. We learn that this small production is a comeback from failed, high flying Hollywood careers for the co-directors, Nathaniel (Rob Campbell) and Paola (Mary Shultz). The auditioning actors also unpack some of their personal baggage. From this setup it's on to rehearsals, alcohol soaked cast get-togethers, the opening night in Boston -- and a second act in New York that serves as a what happened after the curtain came down epilogue that contains the seeds for another full-length play. Given the generous doses of rehearsal scenes and the discussions about how to interpret Nathaniel's wishy-washy adaptation, audience members unfamiliar with the Oedipus myth should have no problem connecting the dots between Oedipus' actions and the revelations its staging brings. Still, a summary in the Playbill wouldn't be amiss and I'm therefore including one in a box following the production notes below. Any difficulties in following what's going on are most likely to come from the simultaneous conversations that permeate the first act. The thing is NOT to try to catch everything that's said but to concentrate on the primary dialogue. This is a matter of learning to focus on what's important to the moment, and accepting the overlapping interchanges as background noise and to trust Mr. Lucas to bring every member of the ensemble front and center. Once you get into this cross-cutting groove it's easy to see that the playwright is probably using this technique to make a point about how all the chatter in the news often distracts and blinds us to what's important. All six actors adeptly let the overlapping conversations bump up against each other and bring their characters to fully realized life. Bob Campbell manages to make us like Nathaniel even as we laugh at his more artsy than artful directorial pronouncement and the right wing political comments that befit his full name, Nathaniel Townsende III. Mary Schultz taps into the pain beneath the shrewish glibness of Nathaniel's partner Paola, whose health problems (she's HIV positive) he blames for their abrupt downward career spiral. As the troubled directors, separately and together, guide the actors through their roles, the complexities of the off stage relationships merge with those of the ancient drama. Daniel Eric Gold and Rosemarie De Witt find a lot of humor in their respective roles: he as a naive young man named Christmas who plays the seer Teiresias and falls madly in love with Nathaniel; she as Fanny an AA graduate and, in the Oedipus story, half of a two-woman chorus (Schultz being the other half). Fanny is woefully uninformed about world events (the subject of Bosnia prompts her to ask " Isn't there, like, a sort of a war there?") but she has a built-in radar for detecting phonies -- unlike her friend Jen, the appealing and sensitive Ana Reeder, who seems to have an affinity for men who will cause her grief. Fanny and Jen react quite differently to Hakija (Lee Pace), the young Bosnian economics student who turns out to be the group's one gifted actor. A story he tells Fanny about himself, and freely admits to being manufactured, leaves her permanently uneasy about who he really is (a theme also explored in the upcoming Broadway revival of Lucas' Reckless). Jen, on the other hand, is captivated by Hakija's charisma as she plays Jocasta to his Oedipus. Her ultimate decision about dealing with a truth that once revealed can never be completely swept out of sight can provides much food for post curtain contemplation. Like Jen, you will be unable to resist Lee Pace. Looking and even sounding a bit like a young Gregory Peck, he gives a powerhouse performance as the tragedy haunted Bosnian for whom his newfound loves-- the theater and Jen-- mean a new and better future. He is a brutally passionate Oedipus and a sexy, perplexingly unknowable Hajika. His dual characterizations more than deliver on the promise of his impressive debut in The Credeaux Canvas (review) For all the assets, there are flaws, most having to do with overdoing or underdoing things. HIV is enough of a tragedy for Paola and Nathaniel's background; why throw in alcoholism? The play within Small Tragedy is allowed too much stage time. On the other hand, the final revelation with its attendant moral dilemma feels almost rushed. But these are minor blemishes in light of the overall script and the production, which in addition to the strong cast, boasts first rate production values. It doesn't matter whether, like Jen in her opening remarks, you're left wondering "whose tragedy this is, was" or if it is "simply a very sad thing." Where else can you find laughs, heart-tug, plus fodder for lively post-mortems? With all due respect to director Nathaniel, Craig Lucas has made an ancient classic as timely as tomorow's's headlines. LINKS The Dying Gaul Lucas in a more strictly somber mood Second Thoughts on Gaul's second run This Thing Of Darkness collaboration by Lucas and David Schulner
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Mendes at the Donmar Our Review At This Theater Leonard Maltin's 2003 Movie and Video Guide Ridiculous!The Theatrical Life & Times of Charles Ludlam Somewhere For Me, a Biography of Richard Rodgers The New York Times Book of Broadway: On the Aisle for the Unforgettable Plays of the Last Century 6, 500 Comparative Phrases including 800 Shakespearean Metaphors by CurtainUp's editor. Click image to buy. Go here for details and larger image. |