All photos by Tim Price
Someone much wiser than I once told
me that it’s not a choice if there is nothing to lose, for a choice, by its
very nature, must involve both gain and loss. That is the essence of Arthur
Miller’s “The Price,” which recently opened at Seven Angels up in Waterbury in a strong,
solid production. The 1968 play by one of America ’s most esteemed playwrights
deals with the choices two brothers make – and by extension choices made by the
wife of one of the brothers and the brothers’ father, now deceased. Miller,
hailed as one of the dramatists who shifted drama’s (and tragedy’s) focus onto
the ‘common’ man, here brings together two men haunted by the after-effects of
the Depression and the paths they took to achieve or deny their dreams.
The play, directed with a steady,
knowing hand by Semina De Laurentis, Seven Angels’ artistic director, opens
slowly as Victor Franz (Charlie Kevin), a New York City policemen now facing
retirement, returns to an attic room where he and his father once lived, where
they, in his own words, were forced “to eat garbage” when times were tough. The
room is filled with furniture, now antiquated, and the detritus of a life lived
neither wisely nor too well, that Victor is eager to sell.
In a lengthy piece of exposition between
the cop and his wife, Esther (Denise Walker), we learn, ever so slowly, that
Victor, who dreamed of becoming a scientist, opted to stay with his father, a
man monetarily and psychologically destroyed by the Great Crash of 1929, rather
than pursuing a degree. Needing a job, Victor joined the cops and has been on
the beat ever since. He balances his loss against the sure knowledge that he
did what was right, what was expected of a son, unlike his brother, Walter (Jon
Krupp), who apparently turned his back on the family to pursue his dream,
eventually becoming a renowned surgeon. Choices were made, and they haunt and
stain the lives of these two men.
Exposition (setting the scene;
letting the audience know who the characters are and their relationships) is a
necessary evil in theater. It’s seldom exciting and often engenders a certain
amount of frustrated toe-tapping among the more anxious of theater-goers. In
“The Price,” just when said toe-tapping might turn into a full-fledged tango,
who should appear on the scene but Gregory Solomon (R. Bruce Connelly), a
world-wise furniture appraiser, first-class deal maker, pocket philosopher, and
just a bit of a nudnik. With
Solomon’s appearance, the pace of the drama picks up (as do its comedic
elements) and rushes towards a climactic confrontation between the two brothers
that reveals the motives behind the
choices made and the lies and misunderstandings that fed into those motives. It
is fitting that what starts in silence ends in manufactured, forced laughter,
for the drama deals with the human comedy, which is a razor-cut away from the
human tragedy.
R. Bruce Connelly, Jon Krupp, Charlie Kevin and Denise Walker
The bulwark, or bulwarks, of this
production are Kevin’s Victor and Connelly’s Solomon. Kevin gives a nuanced,
multi-layered performance, slowly creating a man who must confront the reality
of the choices he has made. On stage from curtain to curtain, Kevin uses voice
tonality and body language to create an all-too-real human being (watch his
hands clench and unclench as his character attempts to deal with revelations
that threaten to destroy the “story” he has told himself to justify his
choices; note his fingers flutter as he strives to find words that will counter
his brother’s “truth”). As Kevin’s character is forced to look into the mirror
it is a minor epiphany for the audience members, for we all have had to face
the reality of the major and minor fictions by which we have framed the past to
put the best spin on it and, by extension, on ourselves.
And then there is Connelly, who has
often graced the Seven Angels’ stage (I heard several audience members refer
fondly to his turn as George Burns in “Say Goodnight, Gracie”). If Kevin uses
body language to good effect, Connelly gives a master-class in how important
movement is to the acting craft. He shirks, he shrugs, his fingers worry his
lips as his character tries to work a deal – and deal out some home-spun
philosophy in the process. It’s a great effort by a multi-talented actor.
If Kevin and Connelly give us
character depth from the moment they walk on the stage, Walker and Krupp seem,
initially, to skate across the surface of their characters – Walker aware that
she is playing the part of the much put-upon, aggrieved wife; Krupp cognizant
he is the ill-understood brother. However, each seems, over the course of the
evening, to sink into her or his character, with Walker giving a heartfelt
defense of Esther’s husband (a la Willy Loman’s wife in the penultimate scenes
of “Death of a Salesman”), and Krupp rising to the occasion when his character
is called upon to bring more than a touch of reality into his brother’s
life…and memories.
Get through the first 15 or so
minutes of “The Price” and you’re in for a gripping piece of theater, one that
offers no easy answers and provides no ultimate truths (is there anything in
life that does?) save forced laughter, but in the process it makes us think,
for it speaks to who we all are, flawed creatures desperately clinging to
self-definitions and self-justifications…and self-delusions.
The past is like an accident -- we
all saw the accident happen, we just have different takes on why it happened,
what were its consequences and, of course, who was responsible.
“The Price” runs through Dec. 1.
For tickets or more information call 203-757-4676 or go to www.sevenangels.org
No comments:
Post a Comment