"Two Rooms" Review
from http://nathanhadams.blogspot.com/
I had the pleasure of experiencing the North Carolina Stage Company Catalyst Series production of Lee Blessing's "Two Rooms". If perchance a performance is starting soon and you are sitting down to read this review, let me save you some time, go see it.
I usually hate it when a production uses the word "timely". It usually denotes the dragging of politics, like a corpse, into the middle of the stage, for the actors and audience to trip over. This play is timely in the best way. The press release describes it as thus, "The play sheds light on the anguish of a man taken hostage in Beirut, and the emotional torture and helplessness of his wife, impatient for something to be done, and government officials who must be guided by logic rather than emotion." Obviously, the place and conflict are familiar, it is timely. This play succeeds in being timely because at the center is not why or why not we should do this or that, but the simple human pain that drives what we need to do. And it is the presence of human pain, today, tomorrow, and yesterday that makes this play beautiful. It is the type of pain, and the type of human frailties that bring it, that makes this play timely.
The play is indeed, an amazing piece of writing, but this was not what I left the theatre thinking. I left simply overwhelmed.
At first, I was skeptical about seeing a show on the first night. Asheville theatre does not usually accommodate for the type of rehearsal which provides for the best opening night. My fears were completely unfounded. This production is award worthy on opening night. Never before in my time of seeing shows have I ever wanted to leap out of my seat with emotion the way I did last night. I wanted to scream, just to make sure I still could. I wanted the hug the characters, just because they needed it. What was being depicted on stage was real. I overheard one woman tell the actor playing the hostage that she wanted to "hug him and show him sunlight", because he needed it. I was completely amazed at how much the actors were able to make us care for them.
The play is carried by four amazing actors of the Asheville stage. Erik Moellering touches our hearts as the hostage husband, brilliantly pulling off monologues full of the ideas of a man who has nothing to do but think. Kelley Hinman excellently pulls off the pent up frustration of a reporter who wants to do SOMETHING, anything to help through his tool of the media. Lucia Del Vecchio portrays an agent of the State Department assigned to the case. Ms. Del Vecchio deftly handles the passionless speech of the government, adding in just enough humanity to serve the double purpose of making both the character and her unique choices at the end real. Last, but certainly not least, is Vivian Smith. Her character of Lainie practically carries the entire play on her back. If we do not believe her sorrow, her inability to cope, or rage, the play would fall apart. Ms. Smith beautifully pulls off this character, proving an excellent foil for injustices of the world, her largest scene partner.
Another word must be said for the director and producer, Callan White. In addition to applauding her hutzpah to produce such a play, or any play for that matter, we must applaud her work as a director. She is invisible as the show progresses, always the mark of a good director. It feels as if these characters just stormed on stage and told us their story with out ever knowing we were there. And thank god. That's the way it should be. But we know Ms. White has been there, by the sheer brilliance of the overall production. A show this good could not have come together without a brilliant director presiding over brilliant actors in a beautiful collaboration.
I know I'm using a lot of awfully big adjectives, but this production warrants it. It is a beautiful emotional experience. It is a real experience. You will be making a huge mistake if you don't go to NC Stage and see this show. See it, live it, and then go out and do something about it.
(In the interests of full disclosure, it should be stated that the reviewer is going to be a student under Ms. White in the coming semester.)
Yours,
Nathan H. Adams
16 November 2008
Two Rooms
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Montreat professor Callan White is currently producing and directing Lee Blessing’s “it could’ve been written today” drama, Two Rooms, as part of the North Carolina Stage Company’s Catalyst series. I will preface this review by saying I am often wary of message plays, unless they are handled particularly elegantly by the playwright, which I feel Two Rooms is not terribly. The “war is bad” and “everyone is self-serving; no one really wants to help you” and “oh yeah, the government is corrupt and soulless and doesn’t care about your problems” messages are overly loud throughout and therefore rather lose their luster. It seems that Blessing was trying to breathe humanity into the headlines, which is an admirable goal but it falls short in this show as the events and frequent monologues tip into melodrama and awkward poetry. I’m rather unsure as to whom plays like this are hoping to reach out, because they often seem to speak only to the already converted, which seems an odd impetus for creating politically-driven art.
The production starts at an emotional 8 out of 10, so it has little place to where it can build. There unfortunately is not an arc so much as a very slightly inclined line. The main character, Lainie (Vivian Smith)’s husband, Michael (Eric Moellering), has been taken hostage in Beirut, and Lainie has become a prisoner in her own home as she mourns his absence and laments everyone else’s inaction in trying to get him released. A reporter, Walker (Kelley Hinman), encourages her to make public her story so that people will be moved enough to do more, while an official assigned to her, Ellen (Lucia DelVecchio), attempts to go through all the appropriate government channels and priorities to help Lainie while still keeping what she considers the best interest of the country in mind. To its credit, the play does create some interesting questions about who is doing the “right” thing, and if such a thing exists in the situation at hand. Lainie clearly has little to no sway with the men who hold her husband captive; Walker appears to truly want to help Lainie, but has his own career agenda behind it all; Ellen seems to have the most know-how and actual possibility of getting things done, but lacks compassion and a true sympathetic interest in Lainie’s plight.
Ellen’s description of the captors’ motives and general worldview presents one of the more troubling elements of the play’s message, in that it comes across very Amero-centric, decrying the “other”’s very belief system as inhuman, even while recognizing that they are, every day, defending the very land they stand on from outsiders and from each other. I’m not trying to speak out in favor of the actions of the captors (is this blog monitored?), but if we want to talk about difficult issues, at what point do we delineate between terrorism, defense, offense, and “pre-emptive strikes”? Blessing’s point of view is somewhat unclear as he writes through the character of Ellen, because she is not set forth as someone to like at all, but the play does seem to be built upon the premise that there really is no reasoning with the antagonists in question, so it would seem that Blessing finds more than a little truth in her pontificating. Incidentally, I found Ellen’s affect rather off-putting, as I am sure it was intended, but I find it difficult to believe that any person, even in her line of work, would be able to be quite so glib and flippant literally in the face of someone in such clear agony.
As mentioned before, the lack of real build and direction in this play was the most problematic for me. It was kind of like watching the same essential scene written 15 different ways, until its inevitable and unsurprising conclusion. Lainie is miserable, the people around her make her feel as bad or worse under the guise of assistance, and Michael waxes Shawshank in his cell. I suppose this creates an effect of the hideous and tragic monotony of such a situation, and in that respect could be considered successful, but does not make for the best of dramatic worlds.
~Jamie Shell
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