Overkilled, Undercooked
William Nicholson's maudlin meditation The Retreat From Moscow offers little new or uplifting.
A man decides to leave his wife of 33 years. She feels betrayed and devastated. A son is caught between them.
What's special about this familiar story?
In William Nicholson's The Retreat From Moscow at the Delaware Theatre Company, not much.
Though elegant and erudite — British principals guarantee civility, plus the husband reads a book about Napoleon's disastrous retreat while the wife conveniently spouts poetry — this maudlin meditation offers little new or uplifting.
The facts unfold with slow, almost ritualistic deliberateness: Edward (David McCann) never loved Alice (Carole Monferdini) and hasn't been happy for many years. He's met a woman who makes him happy, and chosen a weekend when son Jamie (Christopher Kelly) visits in order to leave. Bitter, brittle Alice's attempts to resuscitate their relationship push Edward away. Jamie listens sympathetically.
Edward has already decided, Alice must cope (flailing predictably, though histrionically, before moving on) and Jamie tries to understand. We learn little about them: Alice has no friends, other family or steady job to prevent her wallowing. Edward wants a peaceful half hour a day to do his crossword puzzle. As for Jamie: When Alice, late in this long play, says, "We thought you might be gay," a woman behind me yelped, "I knew it!" We're spared the cliche, however, denied any information about what (or who) Jamie does.
Director David Stradley keeps characters onstage when they've exited, frozen in the shadows, a reminder that their presence is always felt — but one can't help but feel sorry for the actors who, like us, deserve a break.
Robert Jansen's cold, clean set is a sterile showroom, not a place where people live. Edward and Alice each inhabit throw-rug islands with complementary easy chairs facing straight out, so that characters must fight their placement to make eye contact — an obvious metaphor for the distance between them. Pictures of hands entwined provide sad irony. Shannon Zura's lighting sculpts the space beautifully, and Fabian Obispo's music haunts, all repeating the same idea: This marriage is dead, dead, dead.
I left wanting to learn more about Napoleon's Russian folly, maybe look up some of the poems Alice quoted ... and to see a play that took me somewhere new.
The Retreat From Moscow
Through Feb. 11,Delaware Theatre Company,200 Water St.,Wilmington, Del.,302-594-1100,www.delawaretheatre.org
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