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A CurtainUp Los Angeles Review
Without Walls
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The fact that I teach theatre does not mean that I live in the land of make believe. I only work there.
--- Morocco |
The many possibilities of theatre and the many faces of love are explored with delicious complexity by Alfred Uhry in Without Walls. The playwright takes perennial quandaries to unexpected places in this 80-minute play about an acting teacher and two of his students.
Laurence Fishburne plays Morocco, a gay professor at small progressive Dewey high school in New York. The school is a last chance for Anton (Matt Lanter), a talented but troubled acting student from a broken home. Desperately searching for a father figure, Anton is torn between rebellion and need. Anton is cast in a school production of Jay Presson Allen's The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, a play about a manipulative teacher and a student who, for reasons of her own, has sex with one of them. Anton's co-star is Lexy (Amanda MacDonald), daughter of the school's chairman of the board and one of Morocco's star students and fans since sixth grade. They interact as the characters who need each other's "fresh young flesh" (to quote the play they're cast in). Bth need to see themselves reflected in the approval of a mentor as embodied by Morocco.
Anton is not above manipulating Lexy, both sexually and emotionally, and she makes it easy for him. Uhry's scenes are taut with tension and rich in humor. Director Christopher Ashley, who staged the original 2002 production at Williamstown Theatre Festival, brings emphasis and subtle suspense to the short scenes.
As Morocco,.Fishburne dispays a fine sense of comedy, with superb comic timing. In the first scene when Anton asks him if he knows the story of A Midsummer Night's Dream, Fishburne's "I do" is an acting lesson in itself. In a response which could be heavily sardonic or tossed off, he shares his reaction and his insight with the audience in an even non-condescending tone that is wonderfully funny. Morocco's flair for humor endears him to the students. His own hard-won wisdom and empathy with the students' loneliness enable him to resist being drawn into their confusion. What he give them is summed up by the subjects he he posts on his chalkboard for them to examine: Character, Love, and Truth.
Lanter was a little slow off the mark at the beginning but settled strongly into his performance. The one element missing was the glimpse of artistic talent that Morocco sees and that encourages him to believe Anton could go all the way. MacDonald does very well with the most thinly written character of Lexy by nicely underplaying her lines.
Uhry uses the play's theatre background to illuminate Anton's emotional needs and sexual confusion. In his sympathetic portrait of the difficulties of a teacher's life, he creates a Morocco of heroic stature but, in Laurence Fishburne's hands, Morocco is by no means a statue.
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WITHOUT WALLS Playwright: Alfred Uhry Director: Christopher Ashley Cast: Laurence Fishburne (Morocco), Matt Lanter (Anton), Amanda MacDonald (Lexy) Set Design: Thomas Lynch and Charlie Corcoran Lighting Design: Donald Holder Costume Design: David C. Woolard Sound Design and Additional Music: Mark Bennett Running Time: 80 minutes, no intermission Running Dates: June 1 to July 16, 2006 Where:. The Mark Taper Forum, 135 N. Grand Avenue, Los Angeles, Reservations: (213) 628-2772. Reviewed by Laura Hitchcock on June 11, 2006. |
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The Internet Theatre Bookshop "Virtually Every Play in the World" --even out of print plays