Independent Drama Society

The Independent Drama Society’s Farewell Production: “The Good Doctor”

The Boston fringe scene is losing one of its most youthful and successful companies, the Independent Drama Society. The story seems to be that the burden of administration has begun to overshadow the creative aspirations of many company members. I think the best thing I can say in recognition of their work, far better than any positive review, is that while I often find myself seated amongst a sparse audience of insiders–friends, actors, classmates–the IDS shows I’ve attended always pulled in a diverse crowd. From this I can assume that a) they’re just really popular people or b) they’re just really successful at finding and reaching an audience–something even our large theaters struggle with. I’m going to stick with the latter (although I’m sure they have lots of friends).

IDS picked up a challenging text for their farewell show, now at the Factory Theatre; Neil Simon’s loose adaptation of some of Chekhov’s comic and ironic short stories and sketches, The Good Doctor. The play frames eight brief scenes within a meta-narrative spoken by a Chekhov stand-in referred to as The Writer (Bob Mussett). This narrator treats us like house guests and the scenes come to life almost cinematically, as he either tells us the stories or scribbles away in his notebook. Simon cribbed some of The Writer’s lines from Trigorn, the celebrity novelist in The Seagull, but Simon’s character is by no means as vile. Simon gives us a quirky and intelligent author with a developed sense of humor that’s well matched, at least to the surfaces, of Chekhov’s sketches. Mussett’s delivery was seamless and natural.

Independent Drama Society Good Doctor

Sarah J. Gazdowicz, Chris Larson, and Zach Eisenstat (Bethany Krevat)

Although we get period costumes and the settings remain Chekhov’s, the show feels smartly current. Much more so than the UK National Theatre‘s ham-handed attempt at updating The Cherry Orchard‘s language and characters that I caught at the Coolidge via NT Live. I don’t know if I have Simon or IDS to thank for this. Nor do I know who to blame for a few of the sketches being duds.

The scenes alternate between heady political and social satire, outright slapstick, and sometimes even twisted fables, but it’s not clear who’s doing the bulk of the alternating; Chekhov, Simon, or IDS. Each sketch somehow deals with power inside of a particular situation. Usually the scenes revolve around the pairing of a character with someone superior to him, whether that’s by social status or the particulars of the given situation; a governess and her employer, a father and his son, a seducer and the seduced, a government clerk and a general, a casting director and actress. And often the power inside a scene shifts from one character to another–half of the sketches contain a financial negotiation! I don’t know if IDS paid as much attention to these power dynamics as they did to pulling laughs out of the one about the dentist and the priest, but high production values and good acting and direction gave some of the sketches substance and interesting tensions and twists.

Triple casting let some actors shine more in some roles than others, but standout performances included Sierra Kage, Melissa DeJesus, Zach Eisenstat, Sarah J. Gazdowicz, Chris Larson, and Victoria Townsend. “The Seduction,” where a rakish gentleman with a penchant for other men’s wives walked us through his methods of seduction, was pure gold. Remarkably, it could have just as well been performed to a conference room of lonely bachelors in an airport Ramada. And they’d probably pay more! Also fantastic was “The Governess,” where an ambiguously intentioned woman screws with her governess to to get her to stand up for herself.

Independent Drama Society Good Doctor

Bob Mussett, Sierra Kagen, Victoria Townsend, Brian Tuttle, and Zach Eisenstat (Bethany Krevat)

Daddy’s Girl: Independent Drama Society’s “Eurydice”

People seem to love or hate Sarah Ruhl’s Eurydice. Some are drawn into Ruhl’s obscured take on the popular myth (you might even call it a fable) that deviates from the Greek versions by giving Eurydice a daddy in the Underworld, but doesn’t make nearly as many additions, in characterization or plot, as you’d think would be necessary to fill out a whole play. Everyone else seems to think Ruhl didn’t add enough, and that her pondering on language, memory, forgetting, and most notably, a juxtaposition of paternal and romantic love are incomplete and only superficial sketches that fail to flesh out any real substance.

I have to go with latter camp, even though the play has a rare ability to conjure up intense drama and catharsis when you didn’t expect them to come at all. Well, you know Orpheus is going to turn around and kill the deal, but you don’t expect Ruhl’s triple tragedy ending to be as powerful as it is (even if she’s invented a way for people to die when they’re already dead). The play’s version of Eurydice and Opheus’ relationship is childish, actually annoyingly so, and undeveloped and while Ruhl’s written in relationship between Eurydice and her father is sweet, it isn’t much better in its development on stage. The only trick the play has up its sleeve is that the depth of these relationships hit you suddenly and it’s that dramatic shock that gives them their value.

One of Boston’s best up and coming fringe companies, the Independent Drama Society, has given Eurydice a go, setting it in a circus ring set by Abigail Neuhoff cluttered with knick-knack symbols of Ruhl’s themes; empty picture frames, a water pump, and empty bottles–water is Ruhl’s central symbol, particularly the waters of the Lethe, the Hades river that erases the dead’s memory of their lives, and here also, the language for expressing that life. Annie Winneg plays well into Ruhl’s girlish nymph of a Eurydice that, after reverting to a childish state from her previous girlish earthly state, only finds maturity in, what in Hades, amounts to suicide–a dip in the Lethe. It’s actually her childishness that causes Orpheus to take his tragic turn. Director Lindsay Eagle has really sapped up her romance with Orpheus (Greg Nussen) who comes off something like a hipster musician, always talking about “my music.” Orpheus does get a few very poetic passages that Nussen delivers with aplomb, but Ruhl doesn’t give him much other than that.

Annie Winneg (as Eurydice) and Cliff Blake (as the Father) (Rob Lorino)

The best acting comes from Cliff Blake in a well developed version of (Eurydice’s) Father. He’s warm, paternal, empathic, and sweetly caring, while always slightly off. Perhaps like he’s been dead for a bunch of years or is accustomed only to a younger version of his daughter. Or maybe he’s just an odd ball dad. Blake’s real strength is straddling all these things at once in a performance that makes the play work on more levels than Ruhl could’ve hoped for.

You’d expect the comic relief to come from the Stones, Ruhl’s Underworld citizens that have drunken the Kool-Aid of the river Lethe whom Eagle has dressed up as raggedy clowns. (Orpheus’ music was so good that rocks liked it, these and the ones people threw at his head, but this is just another confused and incomplete allusion.) While these clown provide a lively time for the audience while they enter the theater and have excellent makeup and costumes, the whole device comes off too much like an acting class exercise. Instead, laughs comes from Adam Lauver as the Nasty Interesting Man and the Lord of the Underworld, both of whom have the hots for Eurydice. Whether on a tricycle or stilts, he’s absolutely hilarious any time he is on stage, finding the perfect balance between the quirkiness his characters require and humor that makes audiences laugh, not feel creeped out. Lauver has some real comic chops that I hope to see more of.

Eurydice continues at the BCA Plaza Black Box through April 30th and IDS’s production of Neil Simon’s The Good Doctor opens July 15th at the Factory Theatre.

Adam Lauver (as the Child Underworld Lord) and Annie Winneg (as Eurydice) with Stones (Rob Lorino)

Independent Drama Society’s “Glengarry Glenn Ross”

Sometimes it feels like there’s a lack of classics being performed in Boston. That new, sometimes weak or trendy plays, push aside the stuff that people are familiar with; the hardened, proven texts always worthy of an umpteenth production. The Independent Drama Society has been making headway with contemporary classics, about five months ago with Proof and now with Mamet’s Glengarry Glenn Ross (through the 22nd at the BCA, tickets).

Perhaps Mamet isn’t the best example, since Boston has something of a history with Oleanna and we recently saw a New Rep production of Speed-the-Plow as well as a mini Mamet festival at the ART, featuring Romance, a newer work of borderline self-parody. (EDIT: Oops. Forgot there was a “Boston Marriage” and a “Glengarry” at the New Rep in September.) But, of all these, Glengarry would be the only one to make it into an anthology. As every theater everywhere struggles to reach new audiences, they do themselves a service by putting on canonical theater 101 plays. Many try to make their way through the Criterion Collection or the AFI or Modern Library top 100 lists, but a similar route in getting a primer theater is difficult if the plays just aren’t there to see. If you’ve seen three Glengarrys you can probably skip this one, if not, then you should head over to the BCA for another solid shoestring show by the this young upstart company.

Jeremy Browne (as Williamson) and Phil Thompson (as Levene) (Bethany Krevat)

Phil Thompson (as Shelley Levene) gives a particularly noteworthy performance, carrying well the confident desperation of his character, who’s ego swings solely in the direction of his commission checks. Thompson brings just enough grittiness to the down and out salesman’s smooth, persistent bargaining (or thinly disguised begging) with his boss for leads in the play’s great first scene. We pity the guy who can’t come up with fifty bucks and, in the second act, even with the big sale we’re to believe he’s made, Thompson preserves a piece of that pity–even these men’s successes feel gloomy.

Michael Pevzers’ quirks and ticks seemed forced as his Aaronow listened to his coworker try to recruit him to steal Glengarry’s MacGuffin, some prized sales leads. But he brings an idiosyncrasy of character the production otherwise would have lacked. It works better in the second act, where this awkwardness goes hand in hand with his character’s nervousness–an emotion that has to be drummed in order to sustain a sense of suspicion that spreads out across the entire act and to ensure Mamet’s twist ending really has its cathartic twist.

Michael Fisher (as Roma) comes off as genuinely slick, issuing Roma’s indirect and philosophical sales pitch so genuinely that I was ready to pull out my checkbook. What’s so great about Glengarry is that its more important characters spend most of the play acting themselves, hustling a mark, their naive, but sharp boss Williamson (Jeremy Browne), or each other. The closer you look, the harder it is to distinguish an actor’s performance from that of his character.

IDS had to pinch pennies on the Chinese restaurant set for the first act, but the torn-up office of the second was admirably put together (or perhaps taken apart) by designer Sean A. Cote. The musical cues could have been improved on. A few bars from “White Rabbit” just feels like the choice of an iPod shuffle rather than a creative team, but that doesn’t change the fact that director Brett Marks has assembled a sturdy production with, most importantly, a firm understanding of Mamet’s language and sense of tragedy.

The Independent Drama Society‘s Glengarry Glen Ross runs through January 22nd at the Plaza Black Box Theatre at the BCA (539 Tremont St). Tickets: $23 in advance, $28 day of show, $18 student/senior, available at bostontheatrescene.com.

Michael Fisher (as Roma), Jeremy Browne (as Williamson), and Adam Lauver (as Baylen) (Bethany Krevat)

Prove It: Independent Drama Society’s “Proof”

David Auburn’s 2001 Pulitzer and Tony winner Proof, popularized by the 2005 film, must be something of a pet project for director Chris Anton, a math editor at Pearson Education. But, even though a guy in front of me showed up to the Independent Drama Society‘s current production at the Factory Theatre in a Swarthmore Spheromak Experiment t-shirt (you don’t get that at the Huntington), Proof isn’t really all that concerned with math. At least, not like Michael Frayn’s Copenhagen (to which Proof is often compared) is concerned with its science. Auburn enjoys inserting strains of logical and deductive argument into the dialogue, where characters (all of whom must’ve done pretty damn well on the math section of the SAT) call each other out over the logical fallacies of their arguments and conversation–trying to prove each other wrong by identifying contradictions in the other’s statements. Even in their most heightened emotional states, there are a lot of “but if you A, then why do you care about X.” Even then, the math of Proof is a maguffin for a much more human story of love and trust and mental illness, not the surreal quantum-mechanics-informed reality of Copenhagen.

In Proof, just to lay it out, Catherine (Kate Daly) is coping with the death of her mathematician don father Robert (Mark Borbeau) after caring for him and his atrophying mind. The entire play takes place on the back porch of a Professor’s Row house near the University of Chicago. Catherine strikes up a relationship with Hal (Chris Larson), math PhD student, admirer of her father, and persistent suitor. Her sister Claire (Kara Manson), a yuppie currency analyst, has flown in from New York to pick up the pieces of Catherine’s life, though she’s not so willing to be saved. An advanced and very publishable mathematical proof turns up in Robert’s desk, to which Catherine claims authorship, but that’s a tough sell for a girl who never got her bachelors and she doesn’t really sell it very hard. So doubt, coupled with a desire to ascribe the work to Robert, thereby allotting him a final stroke of genius, productivity, and just plain lucidity, surfaces, frustrating Catherine’s already frustrated life which just starts looking up at the end of the first act.

Kara Manson (as Claire) and Kate Daly (as Catherine) (Kimberly Smith)

Daly offers a convincing Catherine, not convincing us of some hidden hereditary genius, but rather a fragility and despondence thinly masked by bitchy defensive postures against those she deems as foes–almost anyone that talks to her. She’s sloppy, manic, dirty-mouthed, and sassy, but it all appears very much put on–as it should be. One doesn’t look at her and think “math genius,” but one shouldn’t. Her ability to do math is very much trumped by her humanity; her isolation, grief, frustration, and confusion. She’s pretty emo and Daly has a solid handle on projecting just enough victim and just enough bitch. She favored one corner of the back porch set to act wounded in, where she spent too much time looking away and pouting, in what became a stock reaction for lack of more complex blocking.

Where her performance most hurt was in scenes with Hal (Chris Larson, who also did a great job with the sound design, particularly some off-set party sound effects), Catherine’s gaunt recently despectacled math geek suitor. The play requires Catherine to emotionally move very quickly, from treating him with distrust, scorn, and borderline contempt (even though this may just be her way of liking boys), to head-over-heels intimacy, and back again, and then back once more. And the play doesn’t give them very much time to develop this relationship on stage. A few beers might help move things right into the bedroom for the characters, but it doesn’t help the actors or the audience. Larson had Hal down to every nervous back-of-the-neck-scratch, gangling pose, and the kind of confidence that only comes when you discover it late in life–as in after high school. The two couldn’t achieve the intimacy that’s crucial to the very pivotal scene when the proof turns up, the morning after Robert’s funeral party and Catherine and Hal’s first hook-up. In terms of mornings after, I think I felt more awkward than they did.

Mark Bourbeau as Robert (Kimberly Smith)

Although it’s a very different kind chemistry (more deeply seeded issues and incongruity than sparks, butterflies, and quarrels) Daly and Manson (as Claire, Catherine’s sister) are outstanding together. If Hal looks like he stepped off the train from Kendall, Katherine just came from State Street and probably took a cab. Smartly dressed by costume designer Lindsay Eagle, this prim and condescendingly sisterly analyst (she has the math too, just not as much) seeks to knock her sister out of her lethargic rut, playing mother when she needs to. After all, her life is in order, so why shouldn’t her sister’s be. In one memorably staged scene, she comes onto the porch with a breakfast tray, looking particularly bubbly for the hour (when you compare her to Catherine) to music that sounded like something off Mozart for Morning Coffee.

Mark Borbeau’s (Robert) performance wasn’t as defined as the others, likely because the play doesn’t tell us where he exists in it. We get him in pieces through flashbacks that may be straight up narrative flashbacks, or memories via Catherine. At times he seemed like a ghost, not of the genius he once was, but a projection of his daughter’s memories; faint and flat and distant. But, I suppose those same adjectives would come with his illness. Anton and his cast have done a superb job coaxing the humor of the play, with great wit and excellent timing–not forcing it and sacrificing the tragic content to over articulated humor. For a fringe production in a small space, Kirsten Opstad’s set, the costumes, and clever costume and hair changes, are all very well executed and I’m looking forward to seeing what they do with Glengarry Glen Ross in January.

Independent Drama Society presents “Proof” at the Factory Theatre (791 Tremont). Run continues on Thu 8/26 @ 7:00, Fri 8/27 @ 8:00, and Sat 8/28 @ 8:00. Tickets: $15 advance (browpapertickets.com), $17 at the door, $13 students/seniors.