 |
| Playwright William Inge |
Summer Brave
Written by William Inge.
Directed by Charlie Sexton
Reviewed by Keith Waits.
Entire contents are copyright ©
2012 Keith Waits. All rights reserved.
Summer Brave is a curiosity: an instance where a noted playwright was dissatisfied
enough with a hugely successful work that he felt compelled to rewrite it.
William Inge wrote the classic Picnic in
1953 and watched it win awards, launch careers, enjoy a long run on Broadway and
then be adapted into a popular, if overly glossy film. Yet three years later he
felt compelled to rework the material into this script. Never produced during
his lifetime, it finally was presented in New York in 1975 and received a
lukewarm response from both critics and the public.
The story follows the original
fairly closely, with drifter Hal Carter entering a small Kansas town where his
“one friend” from college, Alan Seymour, lives. Alan courts “the prettiest girl
in town,” Madge Owens; and we know there will be a triangle formed among these three. But small differences emerge that separate the two stories until
they become mirrored realities – similar explorations that result in different
endings.
Watching this production, it
occurred to me that the bad rap Summer
Brave gets may be the inevitable result of comparison to a play that has
become a classic milestone of mid-century American theatre. At first it appears
these characters are playing out the same dramatic arc, but without the iconic
dialogue and references that were codified in the popular culture by Joshua
Logan’s movie adaptation. Picnic, for
better or worse, is seen as a great romantic soap opera; where the relationship
between Hal and Madge is depicted as “true love.” It is an impression that the
film lifts to giddy heights, with glamorous movie stars who never convince they
belong in a small town in Kansas.
But in Summer Brave, Inge almost seems to be reacting to the sweep and
swoon that had come to characterize the previous work, keeping the
relationships grounded in the base reality of lust and envy and avoiding the
cliché of a “happy ending.” Hal is opportunistic in his forceful reach for
Madge, and his seduction seems motivated as much by anger at Alan as it is
desire for her. Likewise for Rosemary, the “old maid school teacher” who
desperately pleads with her indifferent beau, Howard Bevins, to marry her in
the wee hours of the morning. Yet this part of the story hasn’t changed as much
as the central relationship.
It is interesting to see how the
playwright plays with the sequence of events to alter their meaning, and how he
sacrifices a healthy degree of the sympathy we feel for the same characters
when we encounter them in the first play. Of course, thus may be why Summer Brave is often thought to be the
lesser play. It is not as easily marketable as its progenitor.
Director Charlie Sexton leads his
well-chosen cast with a sure understanding of the material. There are few
attempts to ingratiate and considerable concentration on honing in on the truth
of the character. Jake Nichols captures Hal’s charisma and easy charm, but is
also unafraid to render his narcissism and braggadocio in vivid terms. Callie
Trawick likewise was tender but appropriately self-absorbed as Madge, even if
the latter quality also lent itself to a degree of self-consciousness in her
performance. Ethan Corder as Alan underscored the fact that this version of
Alan is an improvement on the original, bringing complexity to an easily misunderstood
and undervalued character. Courtney Doyle was splendid as Madge’s younger
sister, Millie, while Clara Burton was a forceful presence as their mother. As
Rosemary, Brooke Morrison seemed to be searching for a balance of tempo that
eluded her somewhat in the first act, earning laughs by overplaying a bit. Yet
she found some truly fine observations and a more subtle approach playing the
pathos of the character in act two. DJ Nash was a solid Howard, giving the
slightly dull figure some interest in his second act interactions with Ms.
Morrison.
The sets by Clayton Marshall and
Alec Volz were evocative but not distracting, while Laura Patterson’s costumes
had much the same effect, unobtrusively supporting the character presentation
and establishing period. The low-key design work was accentuated by a score
consisting of lesser known fifties R&B standards that nicely reinforced the
themes. This is a period that lends itself to cliché, and the consistently
understated design work avoids it.
By play’s end, we are left with a
slightly darker resolution for the familiar scenario – one that anyone looking
to tie up loose ends may not find satisfying, but in which the audience is engaged
to ponder what happens next in the lives of these characters. Their fates are
by no means a certainty, and that ambiguity makes Summer Brave worth seeing.
Summer Brave
September 13-15 and 20-22 @ 7:30
September 15, 22 @ 2:00pm
September 15, 22 @ 2:00pm
Walden Theatre
1123 Payne Street
Louisville, KY
(502) 589-0084
No comments:
Post a Comment