Friday, October 1, 2010
theater T-Square's 'Conversations:' Please shut up, I beg of you
Posted by Curt Holman @Curt_Holman on Fri, Oct 1, 2010 at 1:18 PM
- Andrea Gardenhire
- LOOK AT ME WHEN I'M TALKING TO YOU: Judy Leavell and John Stephens
A former editor of Look magazine and the author or co-author of 21 books, Gross creates a theatrical surrogate in septaugenarian widower Sam Green (John Stephens, founder of Theatre Gael). Directed by Heidi Cline McKerley, Conversations With My Wife begins as Sam chats with a photo of his deceased spouse Sara (Judy Leavell) as he attempts to throw out a lifetime of paperwork, including some of his recent, unwanted manuscripts.
The play’s first section focuses on an extended, genuinely affecting account of Sara’s illness, decline and death (exacerbated by medical incompetence on two continents) seven years earlier. Leavell appears in flashbacks to express Sara’s fears of being an invalid and Sam’s anguish when she suffers strokes and struggles valiantly but vainly to recover her speech and mobility.
Sam wrote a book about Sara’s health problems, and in the production’s worst decision, Stephens reads his lines aloud from the unpublished manuscript for what seems like half an hour (but was probably more like 20 minutes). Would it violate the show’s fourth-wall integrity to have Sam begin by reading, but then tell the story to the audience? As it is, the device puts such a barrier between the actor and his spectators, he may as well be calling his lines from the wings.
For the remainder of the 90-minute play, Sara appears to interact directly with Sam as either a ghost or figment of his vivid imagination. It’s a familiar device, particularly reminiscent of Neil Simon’s Jake’s Women, only with one woman. Sara is saddened to see how Sam let himself go, and confronts him with evidence that he’s given up on writing, medical care, even his beloved golf game. (Gasp!)
As Sara attempts to renew Sam’s enthusiasm for life, the play means to celebrate her feisty spirit and his enduring love. In practice, Conversations presents long stretches about the splendor of their marriage — replete with travel, children, literary success and great sex — until it feels like an unintentional, roundabout form of self-aggrandizement. If Sara voiced a less idealized vision of their life together, the play might discover some tension (granted, at risk to the premise of the imaginary Sara). Apparently they were a couple that shared no significant arguments, although they revive tedious disagreements over whether Sara should’ve eaten salt in her diet.
Grief and guilt can be powerful, debilitating emotional states, but they can also resist dramatic interpretation. If Stephens wanted his performance to emphasize Sam’s self-loathing, he succeeds too well. With his crabbed body language (partly due to the role’s back problems), restless pacing and petulant behavior, he’s uncomfortable to watch, like trying to talk to someone who refuses to make eye contact. Wallowing in self-pity, Sam becomes insufferable company who bears no resemblance to the vigorous charmer he used to be. When Sam goes on about how he was a “good” writer, but not a “great” one, it’s like he’s fishing for his wife’s compliments.
Like Sara’s attempt to rescue Sam, Leavell throws the production a lifeline with her tender yet spunky portrayal. She frequently plays cantankerous Southern aunts and grandmas, but she carries the cosmopolitan character with complete grace, even when embodying Sara’s post-stroke paralysis. Unfortunately, the play ends by making the title so explicit and embracing such a hoary cliché that it’s downright embarrassing to watch. It also emphasizes Conversations With My Wife’s therapeutic value for the author, even though Theatre in the Square’s staging suggests the play needs more work before it’s ready for the rest of us.
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