'Someone' turns Nick Chapel into prison

JOHN YI/YH Edward (Adam O'Byrne, TC '01) complains about the deplorable Gershwinian titular conditions of his prison.

During blackouts, the audience is lulled by the dreamy croon of Ella Fitzgerald, but when the lights come up on Someone Who'll Watch Over Me, the scene is a stark Lebanese prison and the actors are crouched in chains. Enclosed in Nick Chapel's steamy black-box theater, audience members can easily empathize with the discomfort and restlessness of the three characters—tattered political prisoners who are being held hostage in Lebanon. There is Adam, an American doctor (Matthew O'Neill, DC '00), Edward, an Irish jour-nalist (Adam O'Byrne, TC '01), and Michael, a British professor (Daniel Larlham, SM '00), each attached to a stage wall by an ankle chain. On a set that consists of only three plain mats, three water bottles, a Bible, and a Koran, these actors must become the props of their own elaborate fantasies.

Despite the inherent difficulty of performing a play that seeks to occupy the attention span of an audience for over two hours with only three actors, each of whom has very limited mobility, this gifted cast rarely lets its viewers stray. As the feisty, combative Edward, O'Byrne is especially impressive. He continuously sparks reactions, lashing out with testy comebacks and rapid-fire gestures. In Adam's words, Ed "forgets his manners, he shoots off at the mouth. He hurts." In moments of fury, Ed grits his teeth and thrashes in his chains. "I'm a better man than any of them!" he bellows in the direction of his invisible captors. The actors chained to his left and right are also well-cast: O'Neill is mild yet determined—he conveys an almost childish charm in the character of Adam, while Larlham is good-natured and comical as the prim Englishman, Michael. All three actors inhabit their characters down to minute nuances, such as Adam's careful tracing of his index finger along the cell wall; Ed's smooth, "lov-ely" Irish intonation; and the tilt of Michael's head on his shoulder when he laughs, hesitantly, at the antics of his crazed companions.

As they await their unknown fate, the prisoners have only each other to entertain, support, and attack. They discuss women at length. "Don't the Irish believe in foreplay?" "We invented foreplay," Ed retorts. "We call it drink." They enact screwball movies, in which the actors' comical facial expressions and skillful miming can make the audience momentarily forget their gloomy setting and the metal chains clattering around their ankles. Occasionally they break down, and they constantly test and harangue each other. "You're a miserable kind, aren't you?" Ed challenges. "I'm not afraid of you," Michael snaps in defiance.

While most of their small talk, games, and emotional self-revelations are well-timed, alternating in mood and stringing the audience along to the next, nearly identical scene, the few comic-relief breathers there are do not arrive swiftly enough. Michael's monologues bemoaning his deceased wife tend to drag—they are overflowing with poetic Middle English symbols but lack the physical movements that rivet our attention like Ed's stirring appeal to his deceased father, in which he crouches in front of an imaginary tombstone and then crumbles to the ground in grief. While this is a play that requires some patience from its audience, the innovative direction of Tamara Fisch, PC '00, keeps the characters moving. The actors make such good use of their limited shuffling space that they somehow manage both to hold a "Ladies Wimbledon Final" tennis match and drive a car into the air while singing "Chitty Chitty Bang-Bang."

Although their chains allow for movement, the three prisoners are rarely in close contact. To keep themselves from breaking, they laugh together. Ultimately, it is the characters' stoic faith in each other that impresses itself upon the audience; even though they barely touch, the dynamic bond between this trio proves more sustaining than the iron binding them to their cells.

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