 |
| Billy Carter as The Man (the fish is uncredited) |
Okay,
so a “shaggy dog story.” Definition: a very long story or anecdote with lots of
narrative (and often pointless) asides that eventually leads to a punchline
that evokes, at best, a shrug. If you don’t wish to memorize the definition and
prefer a visual reference, all you need do is get yourself up to TheaterWorks
in Hartford and sit through “The River,” a tedious, slumber-fest of a play that
may very well be chock-full of meaning and heavy with symbolism, but if so, the
deep messages and trenchant metaphors escaped at least one theatergoer.
Yes,
yes, I understand that we often “bait our hooks” to catch someone we might be
interested in, and once they’re hooked we gently (or sometimes violently) reel
them in and “land them,” and I’m familiar with the “Golden Apples of the Sun”
and the lines: “…caught a little
silver trout / And when I laid it on the ground / And gone to blow the fire
aflame / Then something rustled on the floor / And someone called me by my name
/ It had become a glimmering girl / With apple blossoms in her hair / Who
called me by my name and ran / And vanished in the brightening air.” Yup, yup
got all that, but neither the fishing trope nor the poetic/folk-song allusion is
sufficient, in and of themselves, to construct a play that might hold one’s
interest.
Okay, so what, pray tell, is
“The River,” written by Jez Butterworth and directed by Rob Ruggiero, actually
about? Well, it’s about…it’s about…let me see, let me think. Okay, it’s about
this Man (Billy Carter) who owns a cabin nestled in the woods near a river.
This man likes to fish and he asks women to join him in pursuit of his passion
– it is, in effect, his come-on line: “Wanna come up to my cabin and watch me
fish?” Yes, I know, he says it more poetically, but when you boil it down (or
pan-fry it) that’s his pick-up line, and it’s apparently successful (maybe)
because, as the play opens, he has lured (no pun intended) The Woman (Andrea
Goss) to join him for a finny weekend of frolic and fly-fishing. Ah, but he has
done this before, for there’s The Other Woman (Jasmine Batchelor) who has also
been at the cabin, and apparently he has used the same lines (once again, no
pun intended) on her as he uses on the new woman. Okay, so what happens? Well,
essentially nothing – actually there may be quite a lot going on, but to grasp
it you must maintain consciousness.
To give you an idea of what the
high point of the play might be, about half-way through the single act our
stalwart fisherman turns on some music and takes a trout that the Woman has
caught and prepares it for dinner. Okay, are you ready for this dramatic rise
in tension? Here goes: he guts the fish and pulls out the bloody innards,
rinses the fish to get out all of the blood, then cuts some slices into the
fish, sprinkles on some olive oil, adds some salt and pepper (the tension
mounts!), cuts a lemon and shoves the slices into the fish, then adds some
herbs and…voila! It’s ready for the oven (by now you’re probably at the edge of
your seat!). Oh, yes, then he washes his hands and towels them off (Are you
still awake, still with me?). How long does this take? I didn’t time it, but it
seemed an eternity. Again, rampant symbolism? Your guess is as good as (or
probably better) than mine.
Besides the lesson in fish
preparation, the audience is treated to several extended monologues delivered
by Man, Woman and Other Woman. They would be fine for use if one was going to
audition, but as integral elements in a play they lay as flat as that dead fish
on the table. Why? Because there’s no emotional investment, there’s nothing up
for grabs, nothing to win or lose for Man, Woman and Other Woman – it just
seems like they're up there on the stage to deliver lines – yes, they are often
very well-written lines but, so what, it’s supposed to be a play not a poetry
reading.
Goss, Carter and Batchelor do
their level best to bring some life into this essentially lifeless script. Goss
is delightfully animated, Carter does know how to work a monologue to capture
all of its nuances, and Batchelor gives the Other Woman one part sweet and one
part saucy, but, alas, it’s all for naught, for I can’t envision anyone in the
audience caring about these characters, caring about what happens to
them…because, quite honestly, nothing really happens to them.
Going back to the “Golden
Apples,” some of the poem’s closing lines are: “I will find out where she has
gone / And know her mouth and take her hands.” Well, that’s what Man seems to
be doing, searching for this woman…or searching for the moment when, as a 7-year-old
boy, he held a quivering trout in his hands and it leapt back into the river.
The poem, the moment (which Man relates in one of his monologues) and the
search for one’s soul-mate are all interesting elements, but they need to be
hung on a dramatic framework – they could be considered to be the ornaments one
places on a Christmas tree, but without the tree, its
limbs, its structure, they’re just baubles.
“The River” runs through November 11. For tickets or
more information call 860-527-7838 or go to www.theaterworkshartford.org
No comments:
Post a Comment