A successful original, 'Birthmarks' and all

A modest living room. Newspapers scattered across the floor. Stacks of fashion magazines arranged neatly on a bookshelf. They are Leil's (Nell Rutledge-Leverenz, PC '03), almost 15 years old, a wannabe model. She's not too young, insists Leil— all the greats started around that age. Nor is she too short— Kate Moss is only 5'7".

REBECCA ROSENTHAL/YH Three scenes, one question: Does this dress make me look fat?

Her father Amis (Eric Gilde, BR '04) doesn't know what to think. He no longer understands his daughter, convinced she is just "weird." Doesn't she understand that she's too short to be a model? What kind of a career is modeling for someone as smart as his daughter? She's nothing like her mother, no resemblance at all.

And as if Amis doesn't have enough to worry about between his daughter and his work at the hospital —always on call!— Grandma Peach (Sarah Treem, BR '02) has to be brought from the nursing home to stay with them. She is a demented old woman, and it would not be a good idea for Leil to spend too much time talking with her.

In the first scene, Peach arrives and finds Leil alone in the living room. She looks her granddaughter over, but seems lost in her own memories. Later in the same scene, Amis enters to find Leil, alone again. They quarrel; they, too, cannot communicate with each other. This opening contains the foundation on which the structure is built— the contest between father and grandmother for Leil's trust and affection. Rarely do the three characters appear or talk together. Much more often, Leil talks alone with Peach or Amis, her loyalties shifting with each new revelation about Peach or her parents' past.

In a closely connected thread, Peach and Amis also confront each other directly, not about Leil, but about the boundaries of madness. Does Peach really have Alzheimer's? Even if she does, can the excessively rational Amis really claim to be the saner of the two? Though too much of the ambiguity is resolved in the second act, this is one of the most interesting and ambitious elements of the play. The two radically different means of understanding the world—Amis' scientific, mechanistic perspective and Peach's magical view—both seem diseased. They seep like poison into their language. Amis can only speak within rigid, stilted structures. His formal, latinate diction prevents all natural interaction. Peach sounds more like a human being, but now and then falls into figures and myths which are as far from the world of the living room as Amis' sterile language.

Unfortunately, the play shifts the balance of sympathy too far from Amis for this element to work as well as it could. He is so limited, so emotionally stunted through much of the play that it becomes difficult not to simply hate him. The first scene of the second act tries to remedy this by having him shift to a direct, passionate language when he is alone, but it is not enough after Amis' behavior in the first act.

On the other hand, this is Gilde's best scene in the play. When called upon to be awkward and stilted, Gilde sometimes goes too far. His stiff movements and excessively broad facial gestures can make him, rather than his character, seem awkward.

The other actors are more comfortable in their parts, though Treem (who gets the best and funniest lines in the play) sometimes seems uncertain how seriously to take her character. Rutledge-Leverenz has no such doubts. Her Leil is absolutely serious and dramatic, unable to detach herself from her emotions or see their occasional ridiculousness. She often acts and talks like a cruel, cold, selfish bitch, but she is also strong, passionate, and very vulnerable. She's a type—a well-known one, even. But Rutledge-Leverenz captures this type's gestures, sitting and standing postures and cadences of speech with eerie precision.

Theater

Birthmarks By Sarah Treem Fri., Dec. 1, 7 and 10 p.m., Sat., Dec. 2, 2 and 8 p.m. Directed by Stephen Townley Nick Chapel $2

Naturally, every time she enters, she is wearing something different (though, inevitably, nothing covers her belly button). In witty contrast, Peach and Amis never change their nightgowns and vests. The light and set design, like the costumes, are unobtrusively simple. Indeed, nothing about this play has the excessiveness of a first effort. Birthmarks is an ambitious and largely successful first play, and director Stephen Townley's, ES '02, production is more than good enough to justify spending two hours in the cozy warmth of the Trumbull basement.

Back to A&E...