LB REPERTORY GIVES US A GOOD TALKING-TO … AND SOME LESS GOOD
By Greggory Moore
Talking With… is 10 women’s monologs that come off as if playwright Jane Martin’s raison d’écritir was simply to compile 10 monologs for women. And despite an 11th-hour effort to tie some of them together, it’s hard not to leave the theatre feeling you’ve just seen a work that will have a more fruitful life as monolog-fodder for drama students than as a point, viable piece of theatre.
This is not to say the monologs are bad. In fact, they—most of them, at least—may be perfect for undergraduate theatre auditions: substantive but not especially deep, elegant and economical enough but not poetic; the characters live when they’re in front of you but die off quickly when they’re gone.
Martin, of course, would not be flattered by this description, but I’m not sure what she expects by putting out a work wherein three or maybe four of the 10 monologs work in a “light” motif while none of the others attempt to touch it. Even if we settle for a broader, more vaguely realized motif of exposing oneself, we’re still left with at least four monologs that don’t fit.
But let’s focus on what’s here, not at what’s lacking:
Talking With…. opens with “Fifteen Minutes,” which is more or less the time we spend with an aging actress getting ready to go onstage. As she’s putting on her best face—figuratively and literally—she confesses to having a tough time of things lately. And she wishes there were some way for her and the audience to be on equal footing when it comes to the “lacerating self-exposure” of the footlights. Teresa Ganzel plays the woman with a smiling vulnerability that convinces, particularly in one arresting moment as she beholds her aging self in the mirror.
“Clear Glass Marbles,” a woman’s narrative about her mother’s last days, takes an initially effective prop and turns it into predictable one. In moments Afsaneh Hamedani manifests her character’s grief palpably, which saves what is probably a bit too static of a piece.
“Scraps” escapes the mundanity of her housewifely life by mentally sojourning to Oz. Deborah Cartwright does all she can to make Scraps more than simply pathetic, but it’s hard not to want to tell her to cultivate a hobby or something.
“Marks” is one of the strongest bits of writing here, even if it belabors its message that being “unmarked by life” is no way to live, and that we should let people mark us, and “[p]erhaps it might be best to wear our lives upon our skin.”
I enjoyed “Dragon” not so much because I found the pregnant woman’s monolog about her impending delivery compelling—in fact, some jokey lines just about kill it—but because Geraldine Uy was able to bring us into the physicality of her character’s present, a physicality that of course impresses on one’s meditations.
The confession of “Handler,” that perhaps one can’t simply will herself filled with spirit—and that perhaps something else will have to do—works well enough, I guess. And in that maybe it’s emblematic of the whole play: monolog is fine, but….
“French Fries,” though, is a cut above the rest. Here Martin hits her stride with the monolog of a homeless woman (sporting a “We Are The 99%” sign out of her shopping cart. Kudos to director Frederick Ponzlov for a timely detail) who loves her some McDonalds—not so much because of the food, but because she dreams it as a point of light in the darkness. There’s a real pathos here, a pathos that is absolutely carved in stone by Shirley Merchant, who never, ever plays us for sympathy, instead giving her character an aged, kindly, spitfiring idiosyncrasy of a woman whose soul is a bit sad and tired but who doesn’t really feel sorry for herself. Good stuff.
“Lamps” opens with the image of the night, and for a second you hope the play will close on something combinatory and unexpected, rather than simply Monolog #10. But that’s what Martin gives us. It’s first-person narrative of looking for intimacy with what’s left in a life when ever more of the people you love are gone is fine—fitting, even, for the closer—but I was left feeling there could have been much more here.
That, of course, is how I feel about Talking With…. as a whole.
This is the currently-itinerant Long Beach Repertory Theatre’s inaugural production (part of eight plays Long Beach Playhouse is running over the course of seven months as part of a project they are simply calling The Collaborative), and I’m a bit sorry they didn’t take flight with something more adventurous, something that would have shown us more than their being in touch with some people who can act (every performer is solid) and a director who can direct actors.
But again, that’s a statement about what’s not onstage. And as always, a reviewer’s statement about what is there is always more about the reviewer than anything else.
So I guess the first character just sort of got her wish.
TALKING WITH.… LONG BEACH REPERTORY THEATRE @ LONG BEACH PLAYHOUSE • 5021 E ANAHEIM ST • LONG BEACH 90804 • 562.494.1014 LBPLAYHOUSE.ORG • FRI-SAT 8PM, SUN 2PM • $15-20 • THROUGH DEC 4
3 Comments
Well Greg, glad you liked French Fries. Thanks for the photo credit. I think ALL these women are quite amazing, especially Sheri, Kit, and CarolAnne who you seemed to have passed over here. You have to admit, you don’t see theatre like this every day. If you don’t mind I’d like to plug the LB Rep website ( http://lbrep.org/ ) where people can get a first hand look at some clips from the performance, and maybe judge for themselves (you are soooo judgmental). But I love your passion, regardless.
Jon
Jon, it’s not clear to me if you’re actually thanking us for the photo credit we gave you (it’s at the top), or if you think we didn’t give it to you (admittedly, it could be missed) and are being sarcastic. Anyway, you took some nice photos (not sarcastic). As to your other comments, as I mention in the review, every performer is solid. You’re certainly entitled to believe ALL are entitled to specific mention (though I can’t help noticing you yourself singled out certain individuals), and even that reviewers shouldn’t form judgments regarding the work they review (whatever that would mean) — even if they explicitly admit that every review is perhaps more about the reviewer than the reviewed. But I guess there’s no pleasing everyone, even with passion.
Yes, it was a thank you for the credit (not sarcastic), and thank you for the compliment. These are both quite rare in reviews. I don’t necessarily think all the actors are entitled to a mention. I just felt the ones you missed were worthy of it, and so I did so. I thought your comment of “undergraduate theatre auditions” was somewhat ignorant. That to me is a value judgement based on taste, and not really about the quality of the work.
The broken forth wall nature of Talking With… does indeed not sit well with many people who are conditioned by the probably typical sheltered lifestyle they lead (or more accurately follow). Not that this means you, necessarily. But it’s either that or you allow your value judgements based on personal taste to contaminate a more objective point of view. Perhaps its impossible to separate taste from critical review. But at least these facets should be labeled as such, and not as measurements of quality or talent.
And I think you agree all are talented, and may even agree all the pieces are well written, in your contradictory statement that they are all solid.
Any actor at any stage and with any level of talent could use any of these as an “undergraduate theatre audition” which thereby would render the phrase meaningless and ignorant. But you are young and have much to learn.