Matt Delllapina, Miriam Silverman, Nick Westrate (Photo: Jenny Anderson)
The most impressive aspect of Anna Ziegler’s intriguing play
about an ill-fated love triangle is the lyrical flow of the text and the clever
way that time is used to explain the past, the present, and the future. The
most difficult aspect to embrace are its three mostly irritating if also romantically
entangled characters. It’s Christmas Eve but the lighted tree in Sara’s (Miriam
Silverman) modestly furnished Brooklyn New York apartment with a lovely view of
the Manhattan skyline (good work by designer Reid Thompson) is notable for the
lack of any presents beneath it. What living room doesn’t lack is the flow of
smart and playful repartee between Sara, a social worker and her good-looking boyfriend Sam (Matt
Dellapina), a budding composer who is inclined to sing as well as impress her
with philosophical quotations.
It seems like a nice romantic evening for these
thirty-somethings who have only recently considered their brief courting may be
taking a turn toward the serious. Just how serious it becomes suddenly evident
when a knock at the door signals a sudden change in the atmosphere and a
dramatic change in their current relationship. The unexpected caller is Nate
(Nick Westrate), a life-long friend of Sara’s with whom she has shared more of
her life, possibly including a fleeting sexual blip. Growing up as neighborhood
intimates and allies, the daily phone chats between Sarah and Tate did not
extend to Sam.
Nate, who teaches third graders in an elementary school has
gotten wind of Sarah and Sam being a couple and he has plenty to say on the
subject. His unsettling presence is not only an ill-wind but a gale force of
words and mean-spirited behavior, possibly neurotically motivated. Sam does his
best to be a gentleman but Nate’s blistering tongue and his rudeness are not to
be abated.
The playwright, with the attentive help of director Margot
Bordelon, charts the course as well as the discourse of all three characters as
they step in and out of the present to remember their past and as well as to
remember the present from the future. This neat construct not only relieves the
constant build-up of tension even tempers the possibility of a physical
encounter, but it is used to artfully define Nate’s emotional instability, the
inherently shy Sam’s difficulty to appraise what’s going on, and the stunned
Sara being able to come to terms with her conflicted feelings. These are the
moments in which see each of them reflected through a personal prism of
what-ifs and whys.
If you can tolerate Nate’s long and blistering tirades, you
will appreciate the excellence of Westrate’s performance. If you can forgive
the conflicted Sarah’s inability to tell Nate to simply scram after five
minutes, you will see the depth of Silverman’s performance. And, if you can
empathize with the nonplussed Sam, you will appreciate Dellapina’s beautifully
modulated performance. The title is derived from a poem by W. H. Auden and the
theme takes a cue from Pieter Brueghel’s “Landscape with the Fall of Icarus.” I
only wish I cared more about these people that Ziegler has gone to such lengths
to dramatize.
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