January 18–25, 2001
theater
Music Matters
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Apt pupils (left to right): Kat (Rebecca Hatcher Lisak) and Maja (Saige Thompson) with their teacher Irena (Ceal Phelan). |
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The Music Lesson
People’s Light & Theatre Co., 39 Conestoga Rd., Malvern, through Feb. 11, 610-644-3500
I am a total sucker for teacher stories, and The Music Lesson, a charming and moving drama, is in the same spirit as the movies Mr. Holland’s Opus and The Music Teacher or the play, The Wicked Old Songs, which played Philadelphia several seasons ago. They all share the assumption that classical music is important both to human existence and to civilization, and that learning to make music can change your life.
The agenda in this new play by Tammy Ryan is both more complex and more overtly political than that of the others, in that it’s about a couple, music teachers Ivan (Tom Teti) and Irena (Ceal Phelan), who have recently escaped from Sarajevo and are trying to make a life for themselves in Pittsburgh. The show teaches the audience what it might not already know: where Bosnia is; what wartime was like between 1992 and 1995; how many people were killed; how divisive and terrible the disintegration of Yugoslavia was. We hear what it’s like to be a teenager in a civil war: hungry, thirsty, trapped by bombing inside a hallway or a cellar, killed jumping rope on a playground. (Six thousand children were killed during the Siege of Sarajevo.)
The two teachers (he’s violin, she’s piano) are distinctly Eastern European in their attitudes toward family and tradition, and their expectations of respect are surprising to the Americans who surprise them in turn. When Eddie (Tony Yacenda), the gifted violin student, says, "We’re not a family — we’re just people living in the same house," we feel Ivan’s sympathy for him as well as his disapproval. When Kat (Rebecca Hatcher Lisak) offhandedly says that her Mom is a "culture Nazi," we feel how shocking that word is to European ears. "Mom" (Kathryn Petersen), a beleaguered divorced parent, is the weakest character, too often an easy, fake caricature.
The American pupils are the focus of the action, especially Kat, a hostile, spoiled teenager who is both more unhappy and more privileged than the Bosnian teenager Maja (Saige Thompson), a favorite pupil who haunts Irena’s memory and the play. It is unlikely that Maja could have been quite so saintly or joyful or brilliant as she seems, but whether this is a function of Irena’s haunted grief, a flaw in the script or a sentimental directorial decision is unclear.
The Music Lesson is not an Afterschool Special, nor is it "children’s theater." It is, I suppose, "family drama" in that it is suitable for young people (I’d guess 12 and up) as well as adults, and provides an excellent opportunity to discuss serious stuff afterwards. (The dramaturg’s notes in the program on the recent events in Yugoslavia are valuable.) There is a new movement in the current theater scene of plays for young people about difficult subjects; divorce, suicide, war — not the usual "just say no" finger-shaking but writing based on the assumption that if theater is to speak seriously to a young audience, it has to do more than entertain them or patronize them or shock them.
People’s Light & Theatre Company makes it a policy to give their "Discovery Series" first-rate treatment. Teti and Phelan, longtime members of the company, give subtle and touching performances, and Lisak strikes the right balance between sullenness and hurt. The set, designed by James F. Pyne, Jr., creates an evocative contrast between old-fashioned furniture and angled glass walls which serve as the transparent barriers between the present and the past, as well as between Pittsburgh and Sarajevo. David Bradley directs.
