‘The Duration’ – A World Premiere of a Play with Enduring Relevancy

 

Palm Beach Dramaworks has staged a new highly charged family drama by Bruce Graham, The Duration.  It is the outcome of its successful Dramaworkshop.  The play was given a virtual reading by Drama (in the) Works last year and the process shows collaborative dramaturgy at its best.  Bruce Graham is not new to PBD, having had his play Early One Evening at the Rainbow Bar and Grille staged in the 2003 - 2004 season.  

Although “duration” refers to a time period, its etymology means “to harden.”  There is that and letting go in this affecting, but frequently unsettling drama of love and loss, the consequences of 9/11.  As serious as it is, the play is laced with humor, some dark and some laugh aloud a welcome balance, the way real people cope with heartache.   You also could call this a murder (of the spirit) mystery play and Graham keeps the audience in suspense as to where it might lead, to a startling climax, and a touching resolution.

Audrey Batten is a history professor at a catholic university, FDR’s administration being her forte.  She’s well-known, but a “low budget Doris Kearns Goodwin” as she self-deprecatingly acknowledges.  She is an advocate for sharp rational thinking and liberal values at least until 9/11, which resulted in the death of her son in the World Trade Center (her husband had been killed by a drunk driver only a year before).  Her former scientific reasoning is not helping her grieving heart. 

Seeing someone in a hijab at the university soon after 9/11 serves as a traumatic catalyst; suddenly Audrey leaves her academic surroundings, without notice, and rents an isolated cabin in the mountains of Pennsylvania.  Has she lost her mind in a crisis of anger and values?  In pursuit of an answer is her daughter Emma, suffering as well for the double loss of father as well as brother.

Caitlin Duffy and Elizabeth Dimon Photo by Tim Stepien

 

PBD veteran Elizabeth Dimon is ideal for the part of Audrey Batten, expressing a strong sense of nurturing, as she symbolically does with the feral cats she adopts around her rural oasis, while she deals with the indescribable pain of losing a child.  Dimon reaches into the depths of her character’s inner self to reveal hatred for the people who caused it, projecting a tough exterior to her daughter, Emma, and her good friend Douglas, as well as to herself.  She even finds redeemable virtues in her new rural neighbors, ones she would have normally dismissed as rednecks, but Audrey now sees just regular people, even artists among them. (“These people are out there in the real world,” she exclaims.)  Dimon effectively projects two personas, one nurturing, and the other an all-consuming rage.

Emma shares her mother’s grief about the loss of her brother, especially as they were twins.  She’s in the academic world as well, a poet, (“Nobody ever retired on a hit poem” she’s reminded by her mother). She frequently retreats to a support group in Newark, dealing with her pain and suffering over the death of her brother Eddie and her fear about what has happened to her mother, heretofore a rock of stability.  In her PBD debut as Emma, Caitlin Duffy effortlessly glides from tense scenes with her mother into talking to her support group, effectively delivering monologues to the group the audience imagines.

Emma’s favorite poet, Pablo Neruda, was known for his nightmarish surrealism.  Duffy skillfully projects her character’s sense of confused hopelessness.  She feels her world falling apart, her mother even buying a gun, taking target practice in the woods, Duffy channeling Emma’s incredulity: “Where did you get the gun?” Answer: ”Walmart. It’s America, Emma!”  Here is yet another layer to the play, the role guns play in the American sense of power.  Caitlin Duffy reaches real emotional depth on stage particularly at the denouement when she cries out “I need my mother!”  Audrey and Emma are then finally able to move towards one another in a healing reconciliation.

Elizabeth Dimon and John Leonard Thompson

 

And she’s not the only one who is worried about what has happened to Audrey Batten.  There is Douglas, her colleague and close friend, whose life in academia seems to have reached its own boiling point, bored and frustrated, considering stepping down.  He is not only a college administrator, but a priest and there is clever banter back and forth between him and the scientific thinker, Audrey.  He is incredulous that Audrey is living in such a ramshackle place, unkempt and looking like a bag lady.  It’s good to see John Leonard Thompson as Father Douglas Kelly back on the PBD stage again.  He is a gifted actor who can play a wide range of characters.  He is frightened for his friend and mines that concern in a somewhat fractious manner as only a skilled actor could do.

There are so many themes running through this inventive, moving play, but the arc is the divisiveness in this country that has only magnified since that unspeakable event of 9/11.  “Political correctness” permeates the timbre of discourse.  While the play ends with hope, what these characters go through to get to their resolution, will have the exiting audience wondering whether we are condemned to repeat the mistakes of the past.  Can we endure?  Good theatre is universally relevant.  As Audrey so movingly articulates, throughout history every generation seems to have its crisis.  Isn’t at least one generation entitled to relax?  What is to become of our children and grandchildren living in constant tension?

J Barry Lewis, directs this play with a sure hand as always bringing his insightful intelligence into the action, always challenging with a world premiere.  This is his distinctive vision of the playwright’s intent, examining the issue of loss of a child by a parent, and the implications for a woman such as Audrey Batten.  He focuses on the power of anger to blind her to this new wrenching reality and her need to go through the stages of grief to find release.

 

The striking scenic design is by Michael Amico, who beautifully captures the rustic cabin with its dilapidated décor, reflecting on the sadness of the characters.  There are subtle atmospheric reminders of the Twin Towers with trident shapes embedded in the set.  The highly functional design has an outdoor so perfect for relocating action and of course where the feral cats visit.

Kirk Bookman’s lighting design shows the dappled leaves, changing to deeper colors of the fall, and follows the action from Audrey’s cabin to Emma’s therapy sessions with distinctive lighting changes. There is a cinematic flow, with no blackouts, making for highly effective theatre keeping the audience’s attention.

Sound design is by Roger Arnold who skillfully incorporates some subtle sounds of the rustic scene, some birds, cricket, and those of the feral cats.  His sound design signals Emma’s transition from the cabin into her group therapy in Newark, replete with urban sounds.  And there are the disturbing gunshots off stage as Audrey delights in her new-found “power.”

Award-winning Brian O’Keefe’s costumes reflect the times and the emotional state of the characters.  Audrey arrives at the cabin more professionally dressed but as her spirit hardens, and days turn, she slips into a disheveled state, both physically and emotionally.  Emma‘s numerous outfits are an eclectic, bohemian look but towards the end, as the characters reconcile, their dress becomes more harmonic.

The Duration by Bruce Graham is a highly relevant new play.  This is what Palm Beach Dramaworks does best: family dramas and, in this case, having had a hand in its development.  To see it all come together in the world premiere, from the initial readings, and now the fully staged version is nothing short of thrilling.  The Duration will surely be discovered by other theatres, so those in the West Palm Beach area can continue to see it at PBD through March 6.

 

Almost, Maine -- Love Glows in the Northern Lights at Palm Beach Dramaworks

 

 

Yet another consequence of the unreal times in which we live: planning anything seems to be impossible.  Due to Omicron there was no official Palm Beach Dramaworks opening night of Almost, Maine; the theatre wisely delayed their first few performances of the play.  Because of scheduling, I am now reviewing the play more than a week after the run began. 

 

Ah, the play.  All those Hollywood adjectives apply, heartwarming, touching, a bittersweet combination of happiness/sadness.  In lesser theatrical hands it’s an easy slope into corny, but both the playwright and Palm Beach Dramaworks guard against that and instead this production aspires to an uplifting view of the human condition with all the things we share, especially the serendipity and vulnerability of love, reaching a kind of nobility characteristic of great American romantic comedies, literature, and drama.

 

Place and the people who have lived their entire lives among each other tie this series of nine vignettes together, all action arising during the same ten minutes on a dark Friday night and set in the mythical unincorporated town of Almost, Maine which is so far north it might as well be in Canada.  They talk a little funny, they are idiosyncratic, but they share the magic realism of the Northern Lights which keep appearing in the tales.  The play is a descendant of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town and the citizens of Grover's Corners.  As a collection of stories it shares some of the rhythm and poetry of the short story collections of Edgar Lee Masters’ Spoon River Anthology, and the isolation one senses in Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio.  The common thread of all is small town America, with the universality of its major themes applying to the human condition.

 

The sum of the stories is greater than its parts and its homespun wisdom shines.  Expect the unexpected as you would in an O’Henry short story, and be prepared to shed a few tears, not being sure whether they are ones of joy or sadness or just tears that we are alive.  As Sondheim says, life is Company.  We are on the same journey as these people.

 

The success of this play totally depends on its expert execution.  Here Palm Beach Dramaworks excels.

 

Veteran Palm Beach Dramaworks director, J. Barry Lewis, orchestrates this production like a fine piece of chamber music, tying together the tender romantic themes while balancing them with the comedic touches exactly as the playwright, John Cariani, intended.  Lewis enhances those moments with split second comedic timing.  In lesser hands this play could slide into sentimentality but the Director guards against that.

 

There are four highly experienced professional actors playing 18 different roles in eight scenes and a Prologue, Interlogue, and Epilogue (those three sections tying the scenes together): Niki Fridh (Woman 1), Brandon Morris (Man 1), Irene Adjan (Woman 2), and Shane Tanner (Man 2).  Adjan and Tanner are PBD veterans, while Fridh and Morris are newcomers to the theatre but fit right in with the PBD vibe.  It seems to me that these actors were relishing playing multiple parts from different perspectives, not being bound by issues of character development and being able to show their wide range of acting skills and comedic abilities.  There are several great comic lines, but the physical comedic moment of “They Fell” when Randy (played by Shane Tanner) and Chad (played by Brandon Morris) “fall” for each other is special.

Brandon Morris and Niki Fridh photo by Tim Stephien

 

Set design for a play of this type where all the actions are mostly outdoors involves presentational sets that can be quickly employed against a minimalist stage meant to denote the outdoors and the possibility of the Northern Lights.  PBD Set Designer, Michael Amico comes up with his usual functional and attractive sets such as the doorway to the “Moose Paddy” the “local hangout” bar of the “Almostians.”  The attention to detail of the set design, such as the snow where the background meets the stage, enhances the production.

 

Outstanding lighting design by Kirk Bookman not only follows the action but sets the deep emotional tone when the aurora borealis, or Northern Lights appear, or when the stars shine brightly against the cold dark sky.

 

How does a theatre company successfully differentiate so many characters being played by only four actors?  Answer: costume designs by Brian O’Keefe.  There are the requisite Bean boots, jeans, flannel shirts and flap-eared caps, gloves, mufflers, and puffy down vests, all of which could come out of an L.L. Bean catalogue, a different outfit for every scene.  The one thing in common is they’re dressed up to the neck, except in “Seeing The Thing” when Rhona (Irene Adjan) and Dave (Shane Tanner) hilariously strip layer upon layer of O’Keefe’s costumes down to their long johns to consummate their long “friendship” finding love in the dark woods of Almost, Maine on a Friday night around 9.00 pm. 

 

The props are particularly significant, the ice skate falling from the sky in “Where It Went” and the “bundles” of love Lendall (Brandon Morris) had given Gayle (Niki Fridh), juxtaposed to the tiny package of love Gayle had given in return in “Getting It Back”.  These props and many others make for delightful, surprising moments in the play.

 

Sound design by Roger Arnold captures the mysterious and mildly threatening sounds of the woods at times and provides transitional music between scenes, a mix of country, blues, new age music that does not distract from the production but provides cover for those brief interludes.

 

There are two lines in the play Chad delivers to Randy in “They Fell” which encapsulate the “heart” of the play: “all  I could think about was how not much in this world makes me feel good or makes much sense anymore, and I got really scared, ‘cause there’s gotta be something that makes you feel good or at least makes sense in this world, or what’s the point, right?...But then I kinda came out of bein’ sad and actually felt okay, ‘cause I realized that there is one thing in this world that makes me feel really good and that does make sense, and it’s you.”

 

Palm Beach Dramaworks, well known for producing classical drama, has served up a welcome change of pace during these very disturbing times.  Pause, reflect, and bask in the glow of the Northern Lights, professionally staged and magically delivered on the north side of Clematis Street, West Palm Beach.

 

Farewell, Jim and George

 

I learned of two friends’ deaths last week, Jim Mafchir who I’ve known since 1964 and George Moffett who we met with his wife, Suzanne, when we were living on our boat soon after I retired.  Although I didn’t see Jim or George on a regular basis, we were part of each other’s lives.

 

I wrote about George a few years ago after he had fought back from his first stroke.  I admired his tenacity and what I wrote about him then could serve as a eulogy.  

 

We had boating in common and I’ll always remember him soldiering up the dock each morning, with his lunch pail, on his way to work which, at that time, was doing faux paintings for some well-known clients in Fairfield County such as William F. Buckley, Jr.  George was a renaissance person, developing creative skills such as music and painting, and my entry details those accomplishments.  Our hearts go out to his wife, Suzanne. 

 

Although I have mentioned Jim in this blog, I never dedicated an entry entirely to him, so he deserves more detail here.  Jim and I had a relationship dating back to 1964 when, out of college, I met him in New York City at the production department of Johnson Reprint Corporation.  I was assigned to Jim who had printing and production experience; and was a graduate of the NY School of Printing.  With my liberal arts background, I lacked any technical expertise and initially he was my mentor and we became friends.

 

In fact I lived with him for a while in the East Village after my divorce in the late 1960’s.  Those were different times; we were still in our 20s, Janis Joplin still rocking the Fillmore East, only blocks away.  Jim had a motorcycle and I was a frequent companion on the back and we planned an adventure to Fire Island for one weekend, leaving the bike at the ferry pier and taking our back packs, hoping to find a place to bed down in a house.  (Ann, who I hardly knew at the time, shared a vacation home on that section of the Island.  That was not her weekend to be there, and unfortunately even had she been there, there was no room in her house for two extra guys, so we bedded down in our sleeping bags on the beach with dune buggies occasionally coming precariously close.)  He moved to the southwest in the early 1970s.  I hadn’t seen him for at least 20 years until we visited Santa Fe in 2008 and spent time with him and Judy and had a close email relationship with him ever since.

 

Even though we were geographically separated, our careers had a degree of parallelism.  While I was running a publishing company in Westport, CT., he established Red Crane Press and then Western Edge Press, imprints that focused on Southwest history.  He was an adventurer; in spite of fighting cancer for the latter part of his life; he was a mountain climber and a skier, taking him to various parts of the world to pursue his passions.

 

Professionally, he contributed to two of my publishing projects as he was a talented graphics designer.  I didn’t have to ask him; he volunteered, designing my first piano CD cover, Sentimental Mood, and my first published book, New York to Boston.

 

More detail on Jim can be found on legacy.com.  Jim, old friend, rest in peace.  You are missed.

 

 

 

A Ground Hog Day New Year

Happy New Year. One feels apologetic after addressing someone with that greeting, now needing to qualify it, saying this New Year has to be better than the last.  In the spirit of self analysis, or criticism, I once again look at my writings over the past years.  I’ve always said that writing this blog is not an act of self promotion, there is no advertising, no dialogue invitation (other than my email address if one wants to write me).  It is an exercise in accountability and remembrance.  I’ve joked with friends that it provides an alternative memory bank, particularly when it comes to books, cultural events, and travel destinations, the details of which are too easily forgotten as time inextricably moves on.  

We all have our opinions and our passions.  For nearly 15 years I’ve guardedly worn my heart and mind on my sleeve, and while looking back there are things I regret saying, but for the most part I’m satisfied.  Sometimes, I’ve even been prophetic, and now I’m alarmed by some of the things I write and think, those going to a dark, dark place.  Perhaps that direction is to be expected as I age, and feel its physical and psychological impact. 

However, most of all I fear that the “American Experiment” is beginning to look like the creation of Victor Frankenstein as we slip from democracy, to anacrocy, to oligarchy, destination autocracy.  We have abandoned the concept of “the common good” and are in a civil war, the polarization of just about every major issue.  This has been mostly played out in a grand political charade but incidents such as Charlottesville, and the attack on Congress last January 6 foreshadows where this might go as a hot war.  The proliferation of guns almost ensures some kind of armed conflict, most likely that very kind of guerrilla warfare.

We can’t even see eye to eye about COVID, extremists exploiting the issue as one of individual freedom.  I have written about this and our ex-President; the thought of his being the leader of our country could have been the punch line of a joke not very long ago.  His popular support ironically is not what he’s done for his followers but instead his giving voice to his follower’s hatred of the virtues of where we thought we were moving, into a more tolerant, ethnically diverse, educated society. 

It is bad enough if we only had to be concerned about the Trumpublicans mastery of propaganda and Gaslighting.  The liberal press writes much about the evils of Gerrymandering and I agree.  But, worse than Gerrymandering is the recent attempts to appoint local election officials, or representatives to the out dated, unnecessary, democracy-threatening Electoral College who are “sympathetic” to Trumpublican causes.

This sets up the real possibility that fair elections can be overturned as being illegitimate.  Then we will be a banana republic.  If election fraud does not work there are always guns.  Is it no wonder I am in a dark place?

At least a cultural light was on in this blog for a long time, but with COVID, many of the theatre and the musical performances which we used to attend in the past, and I enthusiastically wrote about, have been discontinued or migrated to Zoom (not the same).

My reading life has been disrupted by the chaos of our times and although I still try to escape in reading, I find myself less motivated to write about what I read.   Similarly, the piano: still working on improving my skills, but writing about it right now is a different matter.  (Stephen Sondheim’s death in 2021 was a shock and I will write about Sondheim eventually; what he has meant to me musically and personally).

Travel has been shut down, or dangerous, as the civil war plays out, the unvaccinated, the unmasked, claiming their “freedom” transcends everyone else’s. Thus trips I might have written about are no longer to be experienced.

As a society we’ve politicized everything and consequently progress with managing COVID has been disrupted. Years ago we were able to eliminate most smoking in public places which is clearly a danger to the non-smoker, but that took decades for “freedom-loving” smokers to accept, and the Covid issue is even more volatile and equally consequential. 

They accept the licensing of motor vehicles, but not of guns, again equally dangerous if in the wrong hands, or being military grade. I have written more than 30 entries over the years on the need for sensible control of automatic weapons, and covering incidents such as the recent Kyle Rittenhouse murders as examples of the consequences of no congressional action.  Even since the horror of murders of children at Sandy Hook in Newtown, CT, now almost ten years ago, we’ve done nothing other than recite the hollow words, “thoughts and prayers.”

It’s open shooting season on the soil of our once sacred nation, each and every one of them intolerable, destroying spirit.  I’ve written to our so called elected representatives who answer with form letters or emails extolling “freedom and the sacredness of the 2^nd amendment” as if it was handed down from heaven.

I am getting to my point.  Every year I seem to write less.  The definition of “banging one’s head against the wall” is “to attempt continuously and fruitlessly to accomplish some task or achieve some goal that is or seems ultimately hopeless.”  Yes that is where I am at with “freedom lovers” be they of guns, ignoring science, pursuing conspiracy theories, or undermining the very essence of our laws.

Ah, laws.  Another bête noire.  Here we are at the 1^st anniversary of one of the ugliest days in American history, and our Justice System moves in glacial slow motion.  Of course we must be thorough, but at the expense of never bringing the masterminds who are responsible to Justice? 

When I wrote my 100^th entry in this blog I posted a playful entry “How is my driving?”  Now that I;m posting my 726^th entry, I no longer ask that question.  A better one would be, “why am I driving?” I am struck by my first entry from last year ironically beginning “Could we have a worse start to a year that follows the worst year in memory?”  Talk about déjà vous.  I include that entry below as the same themes reverberate:

Saturday, January 9, 2021

The Revoltingly Horrid Year Continues….

 

Could we have a worse start to a year that follows the worst year in memory?

 

A quote President unquote, whose name I cannot even speak, continues behaving like an unhinged mobster boss.  His attempts to coerce the Georgia Secretary of State to throw their lawful election is just one more manifestation of his never-ending quest not to be labeled a loser, which he is and has always been.  His behavior then was criminal, impeachable.

 

But wait, that has been forgotten now as this deranged man stood safely behind a bullet proof shield and urged his slavish rabble to storm Congress just as it was ratifying the Electoral College Vote to name Joseph Biden the next President.  He yelled, Stop the Steal!  He promised he’ll be there with them every step along the way.  He didn’t clarify that he meant that metaphorically, as neither he nor his followers know the meaning of the word.  Instead he retired to the security of his White House Media Room with family members and sycophants to enjoy the siege of his insurrectionists in what we would consider a coup attempt if we were watching a 3rd world government.  It was like a Super Bowl party to them as they watched his minions do his dirty work.

 

Criminal, inciting sedition.  This by a sitting President.  Unthinkable.  Punishable, impeachable,

 

So his job of demolishing the last vestiges of democracy and decency is complete.  He is a deluded anarchist and by pandering to that base he has created a populist persona with a dedicated following, ready to die for him.  It could have been a greater loss of life during the siege had those pipe bombs and Molotov cocktails been detonated.  Perhaps the deep rumble of explosions and their accompanying terrifying bright lights was what he was waiting for.

 

We’ve all seen this coming and with every despicable act we (and many elected representatives) have given him more and more latitude.  After all it has been reasoned, he doesn’t understand the consequences.  He doesn’t understand how government really works….

 

How easily the behavior of one tragically flawed person can obfuscate so many serious issues which are tossed by the wayside, the pandemic and distribution of the vaccines, the climate, racial issues, gun control, voter suppression, and a national debt from which the nation might not recover.  Meanwhile Bitcoins and the stock market rage on while the nation burns, and we wake up each morning, fearing the next disaster du jour.

 

Good riddance to our Mobster President who, unfortunately, will still be part of the cancer that erodes our society from within, no matter the degree of his exile.  Mar a Lago may be his Elba.