The Keen Company at Theater Row
written by Tina Howe
directed by Carl Forsman
Critics tend to thump for new
plays over revivals, so I want to take a second to applaud the fine
revivals of plays by American women right now. Edson's sharp Wit
plays at MTC, which Vogel matches with How I Learned to Drive
at Second Stage, and now Howe gets a nod from the Keen Company with
Painting Churches. All three prove their stageworthiness by
themselves. But it's good to see plays that were successful in their
initial run get remounted. The productions serve to canonize the
works and their writers, strengthening a modern tradition (which is
larger and less rigid than a school or genre) of women writing great
work. And it brings these plays from the '80s & '90s to a
subsequent generation of theatergoers. I doubt these three shows are
an incipient movement, but wouldn't it be cool if they heralded
revivals of Fornes, Wasserstein, Congdon, and many others?
Of the three, Tina
Howe's 1983 play is less dramaturgically flashy than Wit or
Drive, presenting its three-actor family drama in a standard
format of linear episodic realism. Its subject, a bohemian daughter
who paints a portrait of her daffy parents, (wealthy Bostonians who
have friends named “Spence Cabot”), offers minimal tension.
Howe's style is elusive & challenging, subtly shifting dramatic
focus along with audience sympathy from one character to another. A
dreamy neoclassical set (Beowulf Boritt) captures her impressionistic
tone, while the casual delivery of the actors (Kathleen Chalfant,
John Cunningham, and Kate Turnbull) slowly plumbs deep pools of
loneliness. Carl Forsman, however, directs the play with a forthright
realism, perhaps a mistaken attempt to counterbalance Howe's limpid
warmth with comedic whimsy. But Howe's lovely and humane play pulls
loose from Forsman's anchoring, proving itself a sturdy script worth
the revival.
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Painting
Churches
plays at Theater Row, closing on April 7. Tickets?
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