Reviewed
by Jerry Kraft
You
know that old "ripped from the headlines" ad line? If ever a play
actually deserved it, then it must be "Two Rooms" by Lee Blessing. This powerfully relevant drama
is the story of an American man taken prisoner in the Middle East, and his wife
who waits for him at home. The wife's companions are an ambitious and self-interested
reporter and a functionary State Department officer. The man's companions are
unidentified rooms, anonymous captors and a constant awareness of mortal threat
and absolute powerlessness. As a means of connection, his wife Lainie empties a
room in her home, except for a small mat, and there she shares spiritual
captivity with Michael while he's locked in those other, distant rooms. It is a
brilliantly written, deeply felt and passionately argued examination of the
intimate relationship between one man and one woman, and a compelling
examination of the role of institutions and governments in these very personal
"incidents."
This
production, by The New Space theatre of Shoreline is deeply felt and fully invested
in by the actors, but falls considerably short of realizing the depth and
complexity of the characters and situations. It's an earnest and commendable
piece of work that shows obvious respect for the text and the verisimilitude of
the drama, but it's simply under-powered in terms of acting technique and
incompletely realized in directorial control. This is a production that allows
a clear understanding of what the play is, but also an unhappy recognition of
how much more the performance could be.
The
black-box playing space of this theatre is perfect for this show, providing
both the starkness of these rooms and the intimacy of the interaction. On an
unfinished sheet of thin plywood, a simple brown mat provides the perch for a
bearded, kneeling man, handcuffed and blindfolded. Michael, a professor living
in Beirut, explains how he was seized on the street, taken from there to here
(wherever here is) beaten, left in silence and darkness, then held...and held.
His location in limbo is an emptiness perfectly matched by the empty room his
wife creates to feel near him. His place in life has no more distinct locus
than simply captivity, and because he is nowhere at all, Lainie can find him
there, suspended as she is in equal uncertainty of his place or condition.
A
reporter, Walker, urges her to make her circumstance public, but actually is
less interested in helping her than in getting a big story. The State
Department officer, Ellen, is a pure bureaucrat, more institutional than human,
more procedural than passionate. They accompany Lainie in her long, lonely
vigil, but they are grounded in a real world that she transcends in order to
have the profoundly human connection with Michael that she needs. Each of these
characters has a distinct relationship to the theoretical and the actual, to
the idea and the deed.
Raymond
Burke is a
large, robust man and he does a fine job of letting us see how this sort of
captivity diminishes a person's humanity, how his physical pain and deprivation
becomes a kind of emotional lacunae, and how his present reality increasingly
becomes no more than grasping on to survival in the shape of his memory of a
life that once was. He's especially effective in tender scenes with his wife,
reunited in spirit if not in fact, and alternately supporting and depending on
one another. He's rather less effective in finding enough variety, both vocal
and physical, to keep the dramatic discourse interesting and dynamic. What we
do see is the dis-empowered nature of captivity, the way in which the individual
becomes less and less, and the gradual reduction of all the elements of
physical existence, of the body's needs, until what is left is almost purely
spiritual.
As
Lainie, Kara Whitney is by far the most effective actor in this show, drawing a
constantly shifting spectrum of emotions from dispassionate functioning to the
most anguished anger, fear and loss. What I especially appreciate is that this
is never a woman who lets her most overpowering emotions control her. She's
coldly objective when necessary, movingly affected when called for, angry,
bitter, outraged and resigned, but never to an extent that her emotions are in
control of her. It's a strength that ultimately convinces us that this woman
would endure all of this and certainly be changed, but never broken.
Her
companions have regrettably less of that complexity and depth. Geoff Finney plays the reporter Walker with
such lightweight elan that it's hard to believe he really understands, let
alone wields, the power of the press, or that his ambition is such that he can
willingly turn the most personal and searing of experience into good copy. He
also fails to mark a clear dramatic arc in the story development, remaining too
consistently on a single emotional plane throughout, although that is at least
as much the failing of director Nick Hagen. Victoria Drake is simply not convincing as a
State Department officer, never wielding either the authority or the
institutional acquiescence of a lifelong bureaucrat. As a result, we never get
a believable sense of the impenetrable wall of official policy nor the
dehumanized inconsequence of a mere functionary. Given the depth and
intelligence of the issues of government and policy contained in this script,
it's a fatal piece to be missing.
"Two
Rooms" is a striking piece of dramatic writing, stunningly prescient given
that it was written in 1988, and The New Space is a valuable addition to the
Seattle theatre scene. For all the elements in this production that could have,
and should have, been much stronger, it is still a perfectly respectable
accomplishment.