In Scene Partners, Meryl Kowalski (Dianne Wiest) sees her doctor (Eric Berryman). But is he really there?
The line between finding fame and losing one’s mind is disturbingly blurred in the Vineyard Theatre production of Scene Partners, the latest quirky work from mind-bending playwright John J. Caswell Jr. Operating on as many as four different levels of consciousness, this messy, stratified tale is held together, barely, by director Rachel Chavkin, who utilizes the strongest of glues: a sure-handed and deeply felt performance from her lead actor, Dianne Wiest.
Meryl (Wiest, right) reunites with her sister, Charlize (Johanna Day).
At its most basic level, the play follows 75-year-old Meryl Kowalski (Wiest) as she escapes from her depressing familial duties in the Wisconsin home that she shares with her drug-addicted daughter, Flora (Kristen Sieh). The recent death of her abusive husband means that Meryl is finally free to strike out on her own. The bright lights of Hollywood call out to her (and frequently blind the audience). She quickly finds an agent, a supportive acting class, and a willing director, all of whom conspire to bring her life story to the silver screen. Along the way she reunites with her sister, Charlize (Johanna Day), after a decade apart and discovers a vein of vitality running through her otherwise glum existence.
This would all be well and good, if any of it really happened. But beginning with the program which lists the setting as “Mostly Los Angeles, maybe,” and continuing on with some scenes that are clearly dream sequences and others that could easily be hallucinations, it seems more than likely that Meryl’s journey is all inside her head, a methodology for exorcizing a lifetime of grief in a body that has begun to fail. “I'm not dead yet,” she tells her agent. “None of us know that for sure,” he replies.
Diet Coke is the weapon of choice for volatile acting coach Hugo Lockerby (Josh Hamilton). Photographs by Carol Rosegg.
Further proof of this theory comes with her grim declaration that she has “a history of head trauma inflicted by my dead husband,” and the haunting appearance of her beloved nobody of a father, effectively staged as an empty trench coat and hat. Plus there are other winking clues throughout, both numerous and humorous. The Talking Heads song “Road to Nowhere” pops up more than once. Her acting class is called Acting Like a Maniac. Meryl’s deceased hubby, she explains, is named Stanley Kowalski, and her doctor (Eric Berryman, who played another imaginary character earlier this year in the Roundabout’s Primary Trust) is named Noah Drake, the same as Rick Springfield’s once-upon-a-time role on General Hospital.
The false reality inherent in moviemaking is also in play with several scenes offered up as pre-filmed shorts projected onto screens that zoom in from the wings. This includes the opening sequence: a glorious Technicolor, extreme close-up, of Meryl’s face as she confoundedly identifies her late husband as a swatted housefly. Meryl on film is larger than life, while Meryl on stage feels like she could implode at any moment. Meanwhile, a layer of dramaturgical complexity pokes at the fourth wall with Caswell Jr. seemingly commenting on the abstract nature of his play as it progresses. When Meryl tells a flirtatious train conductor, “Sir, you could be my son,” his sly response is, “Or anyone else you'd like, I'm quite accommodating.” “I can't keep playing your mother, year after year,” says Meryl to Flora. “The story of Meryl shifts under your feet,” says her acting teacher.
Meryl (Wiest) is haunted by the specter of her father (Hamilton).
Wiest, who is 75 herself and sharp as a tack, excels in turning a brief glance or a short sigh into a full accounting of her emotions. Her wistful expressions and thinning voice are all-powerful, making Meryl a delightful force to be reckoned with. Riccardo Hernández’s scenic design is minimalist with the exception of Charlize’s fully realized home, a hint perhaps that she actually does exist, though an argument could be made either way. Day endows Charlize with an earnest compassion for Meryl, though she has little else to do before vanishing into thin air. Sieh and Berryman, along with Carmen M. Herlihy and Josh Hamilton, inhabit a cadre of mostly one-dimensional supporting roles, though Berryman giving voice to that empty coat of a father proves surprisingly poignant.
Earlier this year, Caswell Jr. and Playwrights Horizons presented one of the most intriguing plays of the season, the rollicking Wet Brain, with its own dysfunctional parents and shattered reality. It was a wild ride gladly taken because the audience felt grounded to a fairly sturdy narrative. Scene Partners has less structure to hold on to, and a penchant for fast pivots, leaving its audience to tumble out of the theater off-balance.
Scene Partners plays through Dec. 17 at Vineyard Theatre (108 East 15th St.). Evening performances are at 7 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and 7:30 p.m. Saturday; matinees are at 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. For tickets and more information, call 212-353-0303 or visit vineyardtheatre.org.
Playwright: John J. Caswell Jr.
Direction: Rachel Chavkin
Sets: Riccardo Hernández
Costumes: Brenda Abbandandolo
Lighting: Alan C. Edwards
Sound: Leah Gelpe
Projections: David Bengali
