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A CurtainUp Review
17 Orchard Point
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"You're thirty years old, Vera. And while you might think you live in a convent, given the number of crosses in here, you're a grown woman in her sexual prime and it's time you found a man and thought about making a family of your own. Your sister's twenty-five and she's doubling up already."— Lydia
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Michelle Pawk
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Vera's modestly furnished split-level apartment in Cleveland is decorated with balloons and streamers, in apparent preparation for a baby shower. Left in charge of managing her mother apartment building, the frumpy and dumpy Vera has managed to have a simple life on her own. She has, however, used the excuse of hosting a shower for her younger sister (unseen) as a ploy to bring her mother Lydia back to Cleveland. Vera has discovered some potentially revelatory family secret in the basement.
Coincidently, Lydia has also come prepared to give Vera some shocking news. Packed among her wardrobe of revealingly sexy attire are enough bottles of vodka and bourbon to fuel her non-stop haranguing of the virginal Vera whose quiet life-style she can't understand. "When did you follow Jesus down the rabbit hole," she wants to know after noticing the conspicuous large wooden cross on the wall.
Lydia's agenda, as she sets out to prepare Vera for what's coming, is all too clear as she insists on giving the reluctant Vera a beauty makeover. But the play, under the abetting direction of Stella Powell-Jones, is more about giving Pawk all the room she needs to be shrill and abrasive whenever she opens her mouth for extended rants. These outbursts do their job in defining Lydia as a cheap, tacky and self-centered close to over-the- hill hussy. Pawk is rather comical as she ludicrously sashays, postures and poses about the apartment, all of it calculated to call attention to her considerable and glorifiable cleavage. With her numerous Broadway credits, including a Tony Award for Hollywood Arms, Pawk will likely look back on this minor career move as a diverting digression.
DiMaggio's close to stultifying performance is best defined as being someone bullied into intimidation in the face of Pawk's blatant scenery chewing. It is good to read in the program that DiMaggio's first play Spearing the Heavens was developed at the Williamstown Theater Festival, also a nurturing ground for her co-writer Dudley. I'm not sure if further development of 17 Orchard Point, either there or at any regional theater, would have helped to lift this play above the playwright-in-training grade level. But going straight for a world premiere was certainly not the best route.
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17 Orchard Street By17 Orchard Point Directed by Stella Powell-Jones Cast: Stephanie DiMaggio (Vera), Michele Pawk (Lydia) Scenic Designer: John McDermott Costume Designer: Tilly Grimes Lighting Designer: Daisy Long Sound Designer: Elisheba Ittoop Running time: 1 hour 15 minutes no intermission The Beckett Theater, 410 W. 42nd Street (212)239-6200 Tickets: $45.00 Performances: Tuesdays at 7pm; Wednesdays - Fridays at 8pm; Saturdays at 2pm & 8pm; Sundays at 3pm. From 04/25/14 Opened 05/4/14 Ends 05/25/14 Review by Simon Saltzman based on performance 05/01/14 |
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