The best audience in town

Photo(s): Megan Moore

I'm still pondering The Persian Quarter (at left and at top), Kathleen Cahill's play about the Iranian hostage crisis and its aftermath, which is currently on the boards at the Merrimack Rep. The production itself is superb, with two Broadway-worthy performances from Beth Wittig and Christina Pumaiega, and a crafty turn from Jason Kolotouros that's not too far behind the two leads. The play itself is a bit more problematic, though - even if it's one of the best new plays I've seen recently. What's startling about it is that it daringly attempts to find common ground with the Iranians who "took America hostage" back at the end of the Carter administration.  Cahill doesn't always provide enough of a dramatic engine to power her ruminations on that tragic episode, but she does convey its tragedy, on both sides of the conflict - and a sense of tragedy is a rarity on the new-play landscape these days.

One of the things that struck me most about the production, however, was its audience.  Cahill plays with political dynamite here and there, but the crowd at Merrimack never seemed to pull back in a xenophobic way from what they were watching.  Instead they remained attentive and sympathetic throughout, even to characters who calmly mouthed anti-American clichés. Indeed, I felt during the performance an open-mindedness that I rarely feel in Boston, an open-mindedness that allows one to actually consider history as more than a Billy Joel pop song, as more than a kind of decades-long "show," as more than a demonstration of this or that academic perspective. I was also struck by the sense of trust that's evident in the audience at Merrimack (I get the same feeling at the Stratford and Shaw Festivals in Canada); the theatregoers in Merrimack don't jump to conclusions because they know that even what shocks or offends them will eventually be limned by the artists on stage in a subtle and humane fashion.  So in a way the audience is itself a product of the theatre that they support.  There's probably no greater tribute you can make to a theatre than that, frankly.  And I wonder, when will a company in Boston proper achieve the same thing - an audience that is not necessarily aligned with the institution politically, or as part of their alumni community, or because of their ethnicity or sexual orientation, but simply supports the theatre because they trust the artists?  That's the dream, everyone.  That's the dream.

Welcome to the master race - would you like a juice box?

Carolyn Baeumler and Catherine Eaton get to know each other in The Exceptionals.

What do you do when your best parenting instincts prod you toward a vision of eugenics that the Third Reich might have approved?

That's the queasy question posed by Bob Clyman's The Exceptionals, at the Merrimack Rep for just one more week. Or rather that's the question that's almost posed by The Exceptionals - the playwright tiptoes up to it but isn't quite sure how to seal the deal on that troubling proposition.  And with good reason - he's clearly leery of letting his clever play slide toward the pulpy territory of, say, The Boys from Brazil or They Saved Hitler's Brain.

But Clyman doesn't even go as far as, say, Brave New World, and that means his play somehow feels as if it's still in development (we can sense its thematic conclusion is simply missing).  The Exceptionals is still pretty exceptional, though - it's certainly the most interesting political play I've seen in some time, and glints with a dismayed, yet sympathetic, sense of comedy in Charles Towers's smoothly disturbing production.  Clyman's deep insight is that with the new capabilities of our fertility clinics, a vision of a master race can rise just as easily out of Parenting Today as it once did out of Mein Kampf - and the Merrimack cast (and particularly the gently manipulative Judith Lightfoot Clarke) capably put over that idea as implication if not statement.

Clyman's conceit is at first glance utterly believable - a huge "longitudinal" study is underway of very intelligent women who have sought out equally intelligent sperm donors at a gleaming new fertility clinic (that kind of match-up goes on all the time, even now; I think there's actually a list of Nobel-prize-winning sperm donors available to serious IQ-climbers).  At the start of The Exceptionals, two very opposed women have met at the clinic to discuss with the staff counselor Claire (Lightfoot Clarke) the futures of their two gifted offspring.  Gwen (Carolyn Baeumler) is a tense striver; Allie (Catherine Eaton) a more laid-back slummer - a woman who, perhaps out of affection for her blue-collar roots, has never "made good" on the promise of her potential, but instead prefers to kick back with a paperback by Danielle Steele.  Gwen has no husband; Allie has an infertile, "average" one (Joseph Tisa) - a nice guy who's already uncomfortable with just how bright his kid has turned out to be (he's doing quadratic equations in kindergarten; already Dad can't help with the homework).

As the play progresses, however, these parents' wishes slowly take a back seat to the clinic's wishes - and those of its unseen director, "Dr. Vorsiff" - and we begin to perceive a creepy, unspoken agenda operating behind the frosted glass and floral arrangements of these sleekly appointed digs (perfectly realized by designer Judy Gailen, btw).  Said agenda includes slowly separating little "Ethan" and "Michael" from their respective parents and enrolling them in a 24/7 program that will ensure their full intellectual bloom, like "beautiful roses," as Claire coos to the audience.  This horrifies both mothers, to be sure;  but if making sure your child got the very best meant he or she had to join the Hitler Youth Boarding School - well, what would you do?

Alas, so far playwright Clyman only hints at this underlying social issue, when I'm afraid it's basically the end-game of his whole set-up (he has to face it - albeit very delicately - to do his own concept justice).  Right now the author instead spins his wheels a bit on the question of fatherlessness (for both mother and child) - a poignant and rewarding dramatic subject, to be sure, and one about half his audience no doubt relates to intensely; obviously the culture is already edging toward the obsolescence of the father.  But what happens when even the mother becomes superfluous - when the paternal corporation in effect becomes the gifted child's only parent?  I kept wishing Clyman could lead his heroines (or anti-heroines) to a deeper awareness of what, exactly, they might be participating in; instead, he keeps the political personal (and so limits the horizon of his play).  Only Claire, appropriately enough, sees things clearly (below) - she's well aware that as her clinic succeeds, and more and more women opt for higher IQs for their children, the less-intellectually-endowed will inevitably fall further and further behind.  She sees this as "evolution" - but evolution toward what, exactly, she prefers not to say.

Only Judith Lightfoot Clarke's "Claire" can really see what's coming in The Exceptionals.

Right now, I'd argue Claire's internal conflicts all but cry out for more development - still, Judith Lightfoot Clarke makes the most of her subtle cries for help.  As the driven Gwen, Carolyn Baeumler is herself a bit forced at first, but by the finale was deeply touching as she found herself required to sacrifice everything for the sake of little Ethan.  Meanwhile the hearty, likable Catherine Eaton was at times almost a shade too laid-back as Allie - we missed the watchful wit that must lurk behind her "what-the-hell" attitude.  These are but quibbles, however, in what amounted to an excellent ensemble - which ably conveyed Clyman's vision of the "not-too-distant" future.  That is, if it's distant at all.

Not-so Fabuloso

See that actress in green? That's how you'll feel during Fabuloso.

Few local stages swing as wildly in quality as the Merrimack Rep. With a great play, they're my favorite theatre in the region. The Seafarer was the ultimate dark night of the soul; Heroes, a piquant last stand in the sun.

But then there are the productions like the oh-so-ironically-titled Fabuloso, by John Kolvenbach. I'm glad in only one way that I saw it: whenever I say there are actually too many new plays being done in Boston, I can from now on point to this script as Exhibit A. Here's the set-up (and I promise you I'm not making this up): it's actually about a boring, uptight couple whose lives are turned upside down by some wacky friends who just won't leave!!! But wait for the twist - everybody learns to lighten up and get in touch with their inner crazy! Can you believe it?

Yup. You may recall that one from the fourth season of Friends, or the second season of Will and Grace, or the entire run of Two and a Half Men. And if you loved it then, you're sure to love it even more now, when you've paid $40 for it and it runs two hours! Oh, yeah.

Only - oops - did I mention that there aren't any funny lines? That's right; Kolvenbach forgot the funny. And gosh, what a thing to leave out when his plot is one long cliché and he can't sustain most of his scenes for more than four beats! There are actually black-outs in this show where you find yourself wondering in the dark, "Hold on a minute - was that supposed to be the joke?" Maybe Mr. Kolvenbach should have titled this one "Sorry-Actors-You're-Up-The-Creek-Without-a-Paddle-oso!"

For the record, the actors at the Merrimack paddle hard (really hard), and the pair playing the "straight" couple - Jeremiah Wiggins and Rebecca Harris - at least hold their own against the current. But then they don't have to be funny. It's the pair stuck with the "komedy" that we feel for, as they race around with carving knives in their loud Hawaiian shirts and even actually lip-synch to pop songs. Interestingly, these two try distinct (in fact opposed) strategies to put over Kolvenbach's second-hand goods: Amy Kim Waschke opts to sell it, baby, while Ed Jewett aims for something more casual. Neither technique works - although both eke out the occasional laugh here and there, and Waschke at least calms down for the play's only real scene (opposite Harris). But to be honest, watching this pair beg for laughs in different keys is like watching two people try to squeeze blood from opposite sides of the same stone. Or maybe the same piece of plastic.

Because Fabuloso is plastic through and through - which is no surprise, because it's really a product, not a play, that Kolvenbach has machine-tooled to fit into a specific slot in a generic small-regional-theatre season (and thus it's been produced all over the country). It hits a demographic that theatres are all targeting - thirtysomething yuppies - with, yes, a single set and just four actors, and a familiar, TV-tried-and-tested concept. For all I know, it may also come with some tupperware or maybe that set of steak knives. That would at least be a reason to program it.

What else might have possessed the Merrimack to do so, I can't imagine. Times are hard - and the Merrimack is one of the few local theatres that has actually kept in the black over the course of the economic downturn. But recycled sitcoms are not the way to hold onto your audience - especially not the kind of audience that is used to applauding Skylight and The Four of Us, for heaven's sake. Oh, well. We'll file this under "When Bad Plays Happen to Good Theatres." And let's hope in future this remarkable company will keep things actually fabulous, instead of Fabuloso.