In the Beginning there's a lushly colorful Eden, like a
Disney pop-up of a canvas by Rousseau. Adam's casual, enjoying flora and fauna
in the cusp of an enormous tree loaded with gigantic ruby apples. From a
rock-edged pond emerges a strange creature: Adam will never again be a lone
man. Notice I didn't say "lonely" because he finds her always looking
at, following, TALKING to him. What is he to make of this creature, who calls
herself Eve and spends so very much time and effort naming things? In fact, she
questions herself: who, where, why she is. She can talk to animals, who
understand her, but she doesn't understand them. True, cows inspired her name
for her favorite Moon. Eve notices that all but the creature in the tree live in
pairs and have mothers. While the man brags, "I have everything I
need," she feels lonesome. Just after they make acquaintance over her gift
of a banana, her need for activity--could she get other people into Eden or
lead them on tours?--seems to make her
"superfluous" (his first substantial word) to Adam. Though she
leaves on a sort of safari for a while, on her return, what's good is that they discover kissing. What's bad is that
it's not long before the snake gets to them. Soon they both have to leave Eden.
Together.
For a 2000+ years anniversary, the couple, tailored,
wearing shades and toting wheeled luggage, revisit their first home, now a
resort named "E" where they'll try to rekindle their old fire. Eve's
a Hollywood script reader, not the successful writer she'd hoped to be. Talking
a mile a minute still, but on her cell phone, she finds the place pretty much
the same. It's different for Adam, now a family counselor, who points out the
stump, once their tree. Though he'd like them to sample various activities
offered in the resort's brochure, he mostly wants phone-less peace. If they
seem to be arguing as of old, isn't it because "that's what married people
do"? After regretting much
about their kids, they loll in the pond turned Jacuzzi to go over their past
and deal with the pressures of being a pair. She begins a diary. Everything goes
so appropriately for a play inspired by Mark Twain's 1893 Extracts from
Adam's Diary and later Eve's Diary.
Just as it took two designers, Scott Bradley and Bruce
Ostler under tech wizard Vic Meyrich, to lusciously re-create Paradise, so its
perfect inhabitants are cute marrieds Sam Osheroff and Kris Danford. Director
Melissa Kievman has them grow comedy from every seed playwright James Still
planted in Twain-tinged Eden. I've often heard but never used the term
"laugh-a-minute" yet I swear that's what Danford's Eve provokes with
her early musings and chatter. Osheroff's ability to make Adam resist her is
admirable. Further, it sets up a dramatic contrast with his positive attitude
centuries later. That is where drama and seriousness take over. The couple
adapt. From moon-madness to star quality.
I like the way the director uses the pond and Jacuzzi,
not overplaying the symbolism of water. Music and sound by Matthew Parker,
along with Dan Scully's lighting effects, furnish much of the play's differing
atmospheres. Costumer David Covach may disappoint those who want the first
couple nude at first, but I find his choices, though flesh colored, better suit
the playwright's tone. When the play goes into lower key, so do the principals'
outfits, swimsuits included.
Asolo Rep's production charms for 2 hours, 20 minutes
with a 15 minute intermission. Stage Manager is Sarah Gleissner.