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A CurtainUp Review
Vigil
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No, no. you've eaten enough already. You're never going to fit into the box. — Kemp
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Leonard C. Haas and Ceal Phelan in Vigil
(Photo credit: Mark Garvin) |
Lantern Theater Company's Artistic Director, Barrymore Award winner Charles McMahon was drawn to Vigil "because it tells a story in a theatrical way but does so with an unusual style that is as delightfully off-beat as the characters themselves." Barrymore Award winner Peter DeLaurier, who directed this production, finds that the characters "have needs so intense that their extremity is at once deeply moving and very comical."
Vigil started out as Auntie and Me in the Assembly Rooms at Edinburgh Fringe in ‘02, and then moved to London's Wyndham. It's been fairly widely produced since then. [See Curtainup's Review Archives for varied opinions under both titles].
A miserable former bank employee, Kemp (Leonard C. Haas) arrives to witness his estranged aunt's death. As far as he's concerned the sooner she can manage it, the better. His unpromising approach to the dying woman is the stuff of this black comedy. He verbally assaults the lonely old woman and hatches cartoonish plots to hasten her demise. Kemp is a walking desolation row. When he isn't making stunningly inappropriate comments, he is spilling the story of his pathetic life to her. His mother didn't care. His father suffered from depression: " I thought it was normal for people to dig their own graves in their backyard." He talks and the old woman, Grace (Ceal Phelan) reacts, but remains strangely silent.
Vigil is an actors' play. The playwright's long experience with directing and with acting for stage and TV (including X-Files episodes) informs his writing. The needy Kemp, vividly portrayed by Haas, has almost all the lines, and Phelan's Grace has precious few. But non-verbals speak volumes, and the audience closely follows Phelan's humorous, sometimes subtle, sometimes outsize reactions, which run along the lines of Kevin Smith's ‘Silent Bob'. De Laurier's direction is comfortable, but doesn't take risks. It could be jumped up
Intermittent blackouts that are full of music & noises punctuate the show. The nifty sound design was created by multiple Barrymore Award-winner Christopher Colucci. The intricate lighting design is by Janet Embree. Nick Embree's picture perfect realistic set has just one irksome detail: Kemp often looks out the window and comments on what he observes, but the windows are not transparent. The actor couldn't possibly 'see' the views he describes. This little inconsistency wouldn't stand out if the rest of the set were not articulated to the last detail.
Playwright Panych, like a giant in a garden-gnome suit, tackles life's enduring verities through small, intensely funny, focused moments. Death, self-absorption, greed, loneliness, humanity, consolation, caring —— they're all in there. His gravity-defying (also brevity-defying) comedy is a dare-devil act. He set himself the impossible task of writing an ultimately compassionate, yet outrageously insensitive two-hander centered on death. It couldn't possibly work. But it does. And the Lantern pulls it off in a handsome production. Vigil will have you laughing at its disgraceful and inappropriate audacity and at your own shocked reactions.
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Vigil by Morris Panych
Directed by Peter DeLaurier Cast: Leonard C. Haas, Ceal Phelan Scenic Design: Nick Embree Lighting Design: Janet Embree Costume Design: Natalia de la Torre Sound Design: Christopher Colucci May 19- June 12, Opening 05/25/11 2 hours including one 15 minute intermission Reviewed by Kathryn Osenlund based on 05/26 performance. At Lantern Theater, 10th and Ludlow Sts |
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