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A CurtainUp Review
Unusual Acts of Devotion
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I'm sexy-festive. —
Nadine I'm sexy-bipolar. — Josie The women describing their party attire. |
Characters pass in and out of the first scene in a skillfully choreographed way. McNally eases into the story, feeding forward, slowly leaking information as he reveals character along with background, laughs, and warmth. These long-term residents of the building are likeable and very human.
It's the fifth anniversary of the marriage of hunky Italian husband, Leo (Michael Aronov) and his straightforward, earth mother New England wife, Nadine (Ana Reeder). They have invited a few other tenants to join in their celebration. These include a grieving gay friend, Chick (Richard Thomas) and a needy woman, Josie (Faith Prince) just out of rehab, who says she likes to get lots of sleep in order to practice being dead. Chick wants to select some tunes for the party but finds only "demi-crap" in Leo's CD collection. An engagingly disagreeable neighbor, Mrs. Darnell (Viola Harris) is included in the mix. Occasionally manifesting psychic abilities, she knows things she couldn't possibly know. "Friends," she says, "aren't all they're cracked up to be. They're highly overrated." But she will end up singing a different tune. Meanwhile, an uninvited mysterious stranger appears. Glimpsed only by the audience, he climbs unseen up the water tower.
The neighbors accommodate each other like family, and their stories slowly unfold in excellent dialogue. There are secrets and guilt, illness and propensities, and an expressed need to feel safe again. While all of the characters love New York City, McNally seems to favor the native New Yorkers (Leo, and Mrs. Darnell). Yet the unique vibrancy of the city is due in great part to all the people, including some of these characters, who have arrived from someplace else. Natives are great, but without the mix and flux, New York would be like any big town in Ohio or somewhere.
Suspense is an element from the get-go. It's maintained at a low level for an unconscionable amount of time, yet is sorely needed to get us through all the casual partying. There's a sense of waiting for something to happen, of something perhaps lying in wait. We wait for all the ducks to set up in a row.
The mystery with its attendant mounting anticipation, I suspect, may be intended by the playwright to lie at the heart of the play. It feels like a subtext is trying to emerge, waiting to be intuited and deconstructed. Yet despite intimations, any further intended meaning is too incomplete or too submerged under the neat folds of this tidy plot to be fully realized. When something eventually does happen, it seems like a plot device, so it doesn't completely satisfy. I have questions I would love to ask Mr. McNally regarding this element.
Unfortunately, there are minor structural issues, like too long and too convenient absences. (How long can it take each time someone brings some little thing up from the kitchen?) The extended lazy partying, the central meal that doesn't really seem to happen, and the often awkward stage business seem to beg Leonard Foglia to take a new approach to direction at times. However, the actors' generosity toward each other fits nicely into the theme of acts of devotion— their devotion to their colleagues and their craft. Harris, Aronov, and Thomas are particularly notable.
For a new play, the story and the staging both feel old fashioned. It's almost an urban Our Town in sentiment. Unusual Acts of Devotion is an extended meditation on death that is preoccupied with life, the costs and benefits of truth-telling, and the need for companionship, compassion, and love.
Finally, this is a marvelously skillful writer's warm and passionate tribute to the city of New York and its inhabitants.
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Unusual Acts of Devotion
by Terrence McNally Cast: Faith Prince, Richard Thomas, Michael Aronov, Ana Reeder, Viola Harris, Steve Kuhel Scenic Design: Santo Loquasto Costume Design: Jess Goldstein Lighting Design: Brian Nason Sound Design: Ryan Rumery Running time 2 hours, 20 minutes including one 15 min intermission Suzanne Roberts Theatre, Avenue of the Arts and Lombard St. Oct 22- Nov 23 Reviewed by Kathryn Osenlund based on 11/07/08 performance |
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South Pacific
In the Heights
Playbill 2007-08 Yearbook
Leonard Maltin's 2008 Movie Guide
