"Body Awareness"
Play by Annie Baker
Directed by: Paul Daigneault
Sets, Cristina Todesco. Lights, Jeff Adelberg. Costumes, Bobby Frederick Tilley II. Presented by SpeakEasy Stage Company at Roberts Studio Theatre
Boston Center for the Arts. Through Nov. 20. Tickets $30-$55, 617-933-8600 www.bostontheatrescene.com
November 17, 2010
If you haven’t begun your theater season yet, "Body Awareness" written by Annie Baker is a perfect place to dive in. Everything in this tight production at the Roberts Auditorium -the acting, setting, lighting - fits together seamlessly.
The play is set in the fictional town of Shirley, Vermont, from what we can tell, a crunchy granola citadel of political correctness. Phyllis, a psychology professor at Shirley State College, has organized Body Awareness Week, a five-day symposium to celebrate human connection in the most gender-neutral, non-judgmental manner possible. It doesn’t occur to her that the mere title of the program brings up knee jerk cultural and gender-specific ideas buried deeply in the collective psyche (hers included).
Phyllis (Adrianne Krstansky), a lesbian, lives with her partner, high school teacher Joyce (Paula Plum), and Joyce’s 21 year-old son Jared (Gregory Pember), a self-described “auto-didact.” Jared displays all the symptoms of Asberger’s syndrome. “I don’t have it!” is his refrain to his mother who’s trying to steer him into treatment.
Joyce and Phyllis have agreed to host one of the week's presenters. The arrival on day two of Body Awareness Week of Frank Bonitatibus (Richard Snee), a photographer whose fame rests on his photographs of nude women - old, young, and very young - has a tectonic effect on the lives of Phyllis, Joyce, and Jared.
The dynamics between the four finely drawn characters are exquisitely played out. There’s an earthy quality about the dialogue that feels real and unpolished. The fact that the playwright specifically wrote the duration of the pauses and silences into the margins of the script doesn’t alter the power of the dialogue. It settles into your head and your heart as you listen raptly.
The direction of conversation can turn on a dime. The reason it feels so damn real is that we’ve all had conversations like it.
The whole Asberger’s thing with Jared is brilliantly conceived and is central to the story. Joyce’s frequent remarks to Jared that a person’s inability to feel empathy is a hallmark of the syndrome magnify the moments when a small gesture, a question, a piece of conversation, show that Jared, in spite of his denials, is struggling with self-awareness.
Frank’s arrival exposes the cracks in Joyce and Phyllis’s relationship. It also sets up a life ring for Jared, deeply in need of a dose simple, unrestrained alpha-male groundedness. What makes the play so effective is the way playwright Baker finds humor in the way her characters relate to one another. Many of Joyce and Jared’s conversations are hilarious. Frank’s ribald "birds and the bees" talk with Jared had the audience laughing out loud.
When Joyce decides it would be "freeing" for her to pose for Frank, it rattles Phyllis, who uses the occasion to mount a defense for her stringent feminist beliefs and politically correct ideas. Phyllis’s terrifically acted meltdowns are slow motion train wrecks in which her doctrinaire views are tested in the crucible of her relationship with Joyce. When Joyce blurts out, “There’s a difference between concepts and people,” during a tense moment between them, it resonates.
So does Frank’s response to Joyce when she asks him about prurient interest in photographs of naked women. “The intent of the artist and the effect of art on an audience might be two different things,” he says. Frank and Phyllis are on two different planets when it comes to art. Joyce feels the pull of gravity from both planets.
The three part, multi-tiered stage set of kitchen, dining room, and bedroom is the unsung fifth member of the cast. Warmly lit, loaded with a collection of well-worn wooden tables, chairs, bookcases, and a platform bed, it feels pure Vermont. The honey colored wainscoting that surrounds the set on three sides from above embraces it with an aura of home, security, and safety.
The link holding the production together is Jared. In an exceptionally well-calibrated performance, Jared melts our hearts as he comes to grips with his reality. It’s easy to see how his mother loves him unconditionally, as trying as he is. By the play’s final scene, her love for him has rubbed off on us, too.
"Body Awareness" is a great evening of theater. Baker stakes out the battle grounds that the characters have to navigate but doesn’t take sides. The play unfolds naturally - full of zigs and zags of real life. On a small scale, Body Awareness takes on themes of love, acceptance, and sexual politics. Some of the play’s best moments are its quietest and smallest. The play’s final scene is locked into place by one click of the camera shutter, a very satisfying moment in time.
Note:
The Shirley, VT plays by Annie Baker at the Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA
Three Boston theater companies collaborated to produce the plays: The Huntington Theater Company (“Circle Mirror Transformation” ended November 14); Company One (“Aliens” through November 20); The SpeakEasy Stage Company (“Body Awareness” through November 20)
Photo courtesy of SpeakEasy Stage Company web site
Great review !!!!!!!!!!!!!
Posted by: Ann Baker | November 19, 2010 at 08:28 PM