Also this issue: "4 Artists of Distinction" The African American Museum's "4 Artists of Distinction" is bright and deep. -Robin Rice Wlodzimierz Ksiazek: New Paintings -Susan Hagen Le Ballet National du Senegal -Deni Kasrel Beatlemania Now Project -Paul Burress Dealer's Choice -Shivani Mahendroo Donna Uchizono Co. -Deni Kasrel In the Shape of a Spider -Shivani Mahendroo Georgian State Dance Company -Janet Anderson

November 14-20, 2002

theater

A Delicate Balance

by Toby Zinman

“Film hates words. Theater loves words.” Edward Albee said this in a recent television interview, and his love for words -- the spoken and the unspoken -- is splendidly clear in his 1966 Pulitzer Prize-winning drama, A Delicate Balance, now in a satisfying production at People’s Light & Theatre Co.

This immense and subtle play is about a family: an upper middle class couple, Agnes and Tobias, whose marriage has weathered time and disappointment and grief; their sullen 36-year-old daughter Julia, just returned home from her fourth failed marriage; Agnes' sister Claire, a charming drunk who sits on the sidelines and comments on the action. Each character's internal equilibrium is not only delicately but precariously maintained by truths withheld and questions evaded. "It's one of those days," as Agnes says, "when everything is underneath." And this play is one of those plays where everything is underneath.

The delicate balance of this family is upset when Agnes and Tobias' best friends of 40 years arrive suddenly at their door. They are frightened and upset and have come for "succor" from "the terror" that drove them from their own home. Friendship will disappoint, and the undefined, mostly unacknowledged fear of emptiness turns out to be the tragic given: It is only our sentimentality that hopes for an ending full of the solace of dishonesty. There are, as astute Claire says, "so many martyrdoms here."

Because each character is complicated and finely drawn, because their weapons are words and silences (there is a gun, but the melodramatic scene the hysterical Julia stages is a non-event), the demands on the actors and director are tremendous. The seasoned cast, made up mostly of People's Light veterans, turns in solid performances. If they don't seem entirely an ensemble, this may be because the family is not entirely an ensemble, or it may be one of those inexplicably missed beats. It is a production generally lacking in humor, despite many witty lines and the characters' wry amusement, and director Ken Marini has tilted the play toward the tragic -- and the lugubrious. There are too few exchanged glances, private smiles, ironic grimaces -- the elements that create subtle indices to personality.

Alda Cortese as Agnes is wonderfully self-possessed; still and elegant and detached, she sees her life and situation with passive clarity. Graham Smith as Tobias has a very mannered and artificial rhythm to his speech which breaks sentences in peculiar places, but his telling of the story about the cat is remarkable and his final monologue is impassioned and deeply moving. Marcia Saunders' Claire is the much-needed comic relief, but her portrayal lacks layers of unhappiness or self-loathing; she seems too simplified, while Susan Riley Stevens' sulky, noisy Julia seems to belong to another family.

The interlopers have tough roles, since Albee has created them to evoke such mixed emotions in us (would we take them in?). Deborah Kipp manages the unlikable Edna solidly, and Peter DeLaurier's portrayal of Harry is wonderfully nuanced; "I was reading my French; I've got it pretty good now -- not the accent but the... the words." The pause he takes for that ellipsis is perfect.

The set by James F. Pyne Jr. seems surprisingly off the mark -- these people have better taste and more books than that cluttered middle class/middlebrow room. The production is a bit too busy -- Marini seems unwilling to trust the talking and keeps adding distractions (although the business with the coasters is very fine). Agnes says, "If I am to be accused once again of making too much of things, let me remind you that it is my manner and not the matter." The play's world -- and the play -- uses words for effect not content, until the effect becomes the content. This production insists on content, on "matter," weighing down the meaninglessness, losing the "manner," that immense defense against the terror.