"Unchanging
Love" at The
Artistic Home is
an Appalachian, musically nuanced, classically-structured tragedy based on a
Chekhov short story. No really, stay with me. Playwright Romulus Linney and director Gillian Kelly have crafted believable American
characters set in a particular American historical context that illustrate
classic, universal themes and provide a moving theatrical experience. Much as
Lillian Hellman's "The Little Foxes" examines the underside of a
small town family's power and how it strives to hold onto it, this lovely play
provides dichotomies of good and evil, individual choice and moral imperatives,
organized religion versus personal piety, through an array of characters and
situations that entrance and disturb.
The
story begins and resolves with two very different renditions of the hymn
"Unchanging Love" resonating as if from different universes. As the
audience enters, the members of the sharecropper Musgrove family composed of
father Elmer (Victor Doylinda), Annie (Justine Serino), and daughter Judy (Betsy
Elizabeth Ann McKnight) are singing together, talking quietly together, in the center of
the stage. To our left a kitchen, to our right a simple country store, upstage
is the porch of a home, and our family regales us center stage. Soon they move
toward the porch area and it is clear that they have been asked to perform for
the 75th birthday celebration of the more well-to-do Pitman family's patriarch
Benjamin (Gary Houston). In this context, they are asked to sing "Unchanging
Love" for Ben as his mother's favorite hymn. All is joyous and celebratory
and unified.
Clearly,
any dramatic playwright worth his salt will not leave us at the pure and joyous
moment, and Linney does not disappoint. The story explores a wide range of
moral compromise through several family members and community members:
daughter-law Leena (Tera Dunlap); Leena's husband, simple son Avery (Peter
Fitzsimmons);
attorney and political son Shelby (George Dickson); a character from Leena's past
named Crutch (Mark Dillon), and another schemer named Oats (Jason Ahlstrom). Some characters fight for
power, some fight for recognition by a parent, some fight for money, some fight
because that's how they were raised. Against these dynamics we have Ben's third
wife Barbara (Evelyn Kelley), who is a tempered voice of conscience among the
jackals in Ben's life; and primarily the Musgrove family and especially Judy,
who provide their own form of earnest belief -- in themselves, in life's
possibilities, in a deity, but not in formal organized religion or especially
its representatives. Our cast of apparently simple people tells us a
surprisingly complicated story.
Director
Gillian Kelly weaves music artfully throughout this stunning piece of theater,
quickly establishing the Musgrove family characters at the play's opening
(loving, connected), commenting on the action, and providing a respite from the
growing crescendo of greedy maneuvering. As the piece proceeds,
"simple" Judy is at times featured, in inter-scene bridge moments,
"in one", singing of love or loss or heartache. This Judy is more
articulate in song than dialogue through most of the piece, and this fits
perfectly, preparing us for some final scenes when she finds her voice to
chilling effect and our final version of "Unchanging Love". The
director's background in opera and musical theatre enriches this production
immeasurably. Choreography by Melissa Zaremba during the wedding reception
scene and perhaps more subtly placed locations, is energetic and delightful.
This
acting ensemble is mesmerizing. The women provide the moral core and the moral challenges.
Betsy Elizabeth Ann McKnight as Judy is as luminous as she was in Artistic
Home's "Clash by Night". Tera Dunlap's Leena is nuanced and strong
and believable. Evelyn Kelly's Barbara is warm and pragmatic and striving in
her own way. Justine Seroino as Judy's mother Annie is sweet and simple and
haunting (many times evoking Tovah Feldshuh in a strong supportive role). And
the men are equally special, led by Gary Houston's occasionally bellowing
patriarch Ben, who has survived the deaths of two wives and three daughters
and, survivor that he is, proclaims "I reinvent this family, that's what I
do". He barrels forward, living in the present ("a dollar
today").
The
set design by Kurt Boetcher is efficient and evocative; lights by Amanda Clegg
Lyon gracefully
move us from interiors to intimate solo singing spots; costumes by Kathleen
Cowell
marvelously illustrate subtle class distinctions; sound by James Murray is surprisingly delicate and
evokes worlds beyond the small performance space (e.g. the sounds of a wedding
reception beyond the walls of the theatre).
Power,
defeat, and redemption. You will be enriched and surprised by this production.