Reviewed by Kelly Kleiman
As
I left The Goodman Theatreafter the world premiere of Silk, I said to my companion, "It
was good, but I didn't like the source material as well as in other Mary
Zimmerman
shows." Then I realized what this meant: that this contemporary novel
doesn't measure up to The Odyssey, or Ovid's Metamorphoses, or the Arabian
Nights, all of which Zimmerman previously adapted for the stage. Perhaps that
isn't a fair curve on which to grade.
Silk chronicles the sexual obsession
of Herve Joncour, a Frenchman who purchases black-market silkworms in mid-19th
Century Japan, when Westerners were barely known -- and barely tolerated -- in
that country. In the house of local strongman Hara Kei, he catches sight of a
woman who -- as he takes care to note -- "doesn't have the slanted eyes of
the Japanese; a Western woman." Though he and she never exchange a word,
for the next 15 years he returns to Japan less and less for the silk and more
and more for the sight of the woman, who gives him her glance, then her glove,
and finally another woman to have sex with. Meanwhile, Herve's wife -- ostensibly
beloved -- sits at home, waiting. Much is made of her childlessness, as of the
other woman's ethnicity. Though Herve's obsession doesn't ultimately destroy
him, it does distort him, and probably destroys both women in his life.
Zimmerman's work here is
characteristically innovative and gorgeous -- Herve's journeys are represented
by the narrator's twirling a cane to show forward movement, and the clacking of
wooden blocks (an homage to Japanese Kabuki) to imitate horse hooves. The stodgy,
featureless rural French house in which Herve lives lifts to reveal a
magnificent Japanese garden, and Zimmerman and set designer Scott Bradley make excellent use of screens
and shadow effects against them. There is even the trademark Zimmerman silk-panels-shaken-across-the-stage-to-represent-water,
and familiar as it is the effect remains breathtaking. At no time is one
obliged to question Zimmerman's entitlement to the Macarthur Fellowship (better
known as "the genius grant") she received in 1998.
But here's the problem. The work
itself, like other work by Alessandro Barrico (OceanSea, also adapted for the
Chicago stage, comes to mind), embodies the worst aspects of fables.
Specifically, it attempts to conjure archetypes and instead exploits
stereotypes: here, passive women, awaiting only a man's touch or rescue or
recognition to bring them to life, and the mysterious East. While clearly the
wife's passivity and that of the Japanese woman reflect Herve's lack of
understanding, there's just a bit too much of Madame Butterfly's sacrificing
herself for her man going on here. And Asia and Asians are portrayed with the
sort of patronizing exoticism one would have thought eradicated by M. Butterfly
and Pacific Overtures, though that too probably represents the character's
cluelessness. But Zimmerman isn't focussed on misunderstanding-she's portraying
sexual desire, and to the extent that it's desire for the Mysterious Other in
the Mysterious East, the picture is distorted not merely for the character but
for the audience. More, it's objectionable in its encouragement of ignorance.
The
performances are nonetheless, and without exception, superb. Ryan Artzberger manifests Herve's descent from
innocence to experience without succumbing to the temptation to indicate its
inevitability. Narrator Christopher Donahue manages well the unenviable task
of spouting Barrico's faux-simple prose, especially in the early going when
narration virtually replaces action. Glenn Fleshler as Baldabiou, Herve's
Dutch-uncle partner, and Tohoru Masamune as Hara Kei give enhanced meaning to the term
"supporting player," so solid is the flooring they provide for the
dance among Herve, his wife Helene (Colleen Delany, doing what she can as a
projection of male fantasies) and the Woman in Japan (Elaine Yuko Qualter, likewise). Special commendation
is due Goodman veteran Lisa Tejero, who plays the obligatory Dragon Lady character with
grace and dignity.
Mara
Blumenfeld's
costumes, both French and Japanese, are picture-perfect, and the music and sound
design of Andre Pluess and Ben Sussman evoke Japanese music without condescending to it.
Gary Ashwal's
projections complement the able use of spotlight and shadow by lighting
designer T.J. Gerckens, bringing the director's gorgeous vision to lush life. Whoever
created the simple but powerful device of representing a flock of birds with a
shower of paper confetti should get a bow all to him/herself.
The
unexpected reversal at Silk's conclusion has the subtlety of an Edith Wharton
novel, specifically The Age of Innocence, and I can easily imagine its appeal
to a highly literate woman like Zimmerman. But even as she concentrates on the
sexual and emotional education of an unawakened man, Wharton succeeds in
investing the people around her protagonist with three-dimensional
life-particularly the women who are, after all, responsible for that education.
Barrico seems able to imagine those women only as shadows, as cut-outs, in a
picture whose foreground is occupied by men; and though that fact makes them particularly
well-suited to the allusive sketchiness of traditional Japanese design, it also
impoverishes the resulting portrait. So perhaps my objection to the quality of
the source material wasn't so ludicrous, or so unfair, after all.