Trying really hard! Trying really, really hard!

"I like songs about hat-check girls, elevators, bunions, syphilis...you know, all the old sentimental things. It isn't enough to be thoughtful, is it?" John laments. "You sound so pre-war," his lover Violet chides. And so the dialogue begins as the metaphorical curtain rises on a stage littered with empty bottles—a living room of two equally empty people. Set in an unspecified American city in the aftermath of a major war—presumably WWII—Frank O'Hara's Try! Try! juxtaposes the intensity of war with the banality of everyday life, and shows us both the difficulty and the beauty of human intimacy.

KATHERINE ALDRICH/YH Carl Ehrhardt, TD '00, and Elizabeth Hazen, TC '00, flirt as if they were married.

A mere 35 minutes in length, Try! Try! offers a brief but emotionally-charged glimpse into the lives of its three characters: John (Carl Ehrhardt, TC '00), Violet (Elizabeth Hazen, TC '00), and Jack (David Slade, TC '01). When the play begins, Jack has enlisted in the Navy and left his wife, Violet. In his absence, Violet and John fall in love; Violet's loyalties are divided between her two lovers as John is physically present, while Jack haunts her through absurdly romantic letters. The first act shows us Violet's desperate unhappiness, and the static, unfulfilling life that she and John lead. The second act brings with it Jack's return, which forces all three of the characters to re-examine their lives and their complex relationships with one other.

Director Patrick Eckenrode, TC '00, does a credible job of staging O'Hara's play. Since all of the dramatic movement occurs in John and Violet's living room, the production hinges on dialogue. The actors keep the conversation moving at a pace that holds the interest of the audience and maintains emotional tension. O'Hara's script, however, becomes a bit ponderous and obtuse at times, giving the drama pretentious overtones.

Although all three characters play pivotal roles, Violet is the only one of the three whose character is convincingly dynamic. Hazen breathes life into the person of the disillusioned, self-indulgent housewife that she portrays. She captures Violet's boredom by incessantly filing her nails while lounging languidly on the sofa, at turns attempting to reclaim her lost vitality by making seductive advances at John. Hazen shines especially brightly during her wistful soliloquy at the end of the play, in which she poetically expresses a soaring, ideal vision of life. A searing white spotlight is the perfect staging choice to emphasize the essential naïveté of Violet's character.

Effective staging techniques also illustrate the insularity of John and Violet's existence. Throughout the production, the couple remains in their apartment, only experiencing the outside world indirectly by looking out their living room window to the world beyond, and by listening to Jack's expansive war stories. Their banal life is a constant struggle for interest and meaning, which, until the end of the play, they can only absorb vicariously.

Theater

Try! Try! Written by Frank O'Hara Directed by Patrick Eckenrode Fri., Apr. 7 and Sat., Apr. 8, 9 p.m. Nick Chapel

Despite its gems of emotional clarity, Try! Try! is not without flaws. The most evident of these is the imbalance in acting expertise among the cast members. Although Hazen plays her role with skill and subtlety, the other two actors turn in comparatively weaker performances. Ehrardt does a decent job in his role as John, but has a slightly effeminate stage manner and a jarring propensity for overacting. His character's lack of nuance makes the relationship between John and Violet seem somewhat strained and unconvincing. Slade, as the prodigal Jack, adds little interest to the play, giving a fairly wooden performance punctuated only occasionally with moments of convincing sentiment.

In the final analysis, however, Try! Try! holds up fairly well to scrutiny despite its problematic drawbacks. If the production never quite forces the viewer to suspend disbelief completely, it succeeds in communicating O'Hara's key themes. Violet, Jack, and John convey the danger of letting boredom and routine drive the vitality from life, and prove to us the clichéd but valid sentiment that, often, what you seek is right in front of you.

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