Theater review: “The Fall to Earth”
The Journal News, June 30, 2008
By Peter D. Kramer
If theater is meant to spark conversation, its mission is accomplished with Penguin Rep’s latest production, Joel Drake Johnson’s “The Fall to Earth.”
The play’s final moment — which Johnson has said was meant to be “deliberately ambiguous” — certainly had people talking after Sunday’s matinee.
“What does it mean?” one woman wondered aloud.“Do you think…?” one wife asked her husband, who offered a long “Nooooo” in reply.
In the parking lot, one theatergoer turned to the members of her party and said, “We’re going to have to have a long talk about this one.”
You won’t learn about the ending here — no “spoiler alerts” required — but rest assured that, after 95 minutes, it comes as a surprise.
Johnson’s one-act play — on stage at Penguin Rep in Stony Point through July 20 — involves Fay and her daughter, Rachel, who check into “a typical chain motel in a small American town.”
Fay chats nervously and constantly; Rachel offers only the most minimal answers.
Fay dangles her legs off the side of the huge bed, flexing her feet absentmindedly as if pressing on the gas with her right and the brake with her left.
But that kind of control eludes Fay. This trip is not about control.
They’ve come to this place because there has been a death and there are details to see to.
As she has no control over the circumstances, Fay is determined to learn every detail she can about the death. Knowledge, they say, is power and the powerless Fay will take anything she can hold on to at this point.
Rachel wants to take care of everything. It’s not that she’s trying to spare her mother, necessarily; she just wants it to be over, to tie up all the loose ends and get on with her life.
The play’s third character, police officer Terry Reed, takes her job seriously if a bit too personally. She is clinical to start, laying out the elements of the case.
Each fact is a dagger in Fay’s heart, but she’s determined to survive each one. Give me more, she seems to be saying, as she plasters on a tight smile to mask the pain.
Terry can’t help but empathize and, before long, she’s overstepped the boundaries of her job.By the end, mother and daughter — who both declare “I can take it” — are left damaged but determined, haunted but whole.
Director Joe Brancato has taken a risk here, programming a serious work in midsummer, when lighter fare dominates local stages.
But it’s a calculated risk. With a stellar cast and Penguin’s customary attention to detail, Brancato has fully rendered Johnson’s thought-provoking work.
Michele Pawk, a 2003 Tony-winner as an alcoholic mother in “Hollywood Arms,” completely realizes Fay’s complicated nature in a performance that demonstrates nuance, control and split-second timing.
At times, Pawk plays Fay as a sort of Central Casting mother with a guilt-edge guarantee: If Rachel has a cell phone and can call anyone at anytime, why doesn’t she call her mother?
Pawk’s Fay is also coy and playful, sashaying blithely in her new surroundings.
Turning on a dime, Fay is fierce, barking out demands.
Then she’s vulnerable, giving herself a pep talk: “Don’t let yourself get down. Don’t let yourself get down,” she repeats. “Look strong,” she says.
When she comes unglued — which we know is bound to happen — it’s heart-rending. All control is lost.
As Rachel, Laura Heisler has an unenviable task: Playing opposite Pawk’s raw vortex of vulnerability, Heisler has to listen to every word but appear not to care too much. After all, her character is here to get it over with.
The young actress, seen in Broadway’s “Coram Boy” last year, is natural and unaffected — all in control — until the final moments when a revelation gives us a glimpse of the life Rachel has lived. Heisler’s performance is something to see, an exercise in observation.
Amelia Campbell, a 1991 Tony-nominee for “Our Country’s Good,” plays Terry with sweetness, compassion and a touch of naiveté. As she sees the impact her words have on Fay, she tries to undo the damage.
Joe Egan’s set is efficient and appropriately spare, converting seamlessly — in a rapid set change — from an Anywhere, U.S.A. motel room into an office in at an Anywhere, U.S.A. police station.
Joanne M. Haas’ costumes are appropriate — Pawk in a powder blue business suit (that her character tugs at), Heisler in jeans and Campbell in full police uniform.Gary Marder’s lighting focuses our attention where it needs to be and dims effectively to that final tableau that will have folks talking.
‘The Fall to Earth’
Where: Penguin Rep, 7 Crickettown Road, Stony Point.
When: Through July 20. 8 p.m. Thursday, Friday and Saturday, with matinees at 4 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday.
Tickets: Individual tickets are $32, and $16 for those 30 and younger. Discounts are available for groups of 10 or more.
Call: 845-786-2873.
Web: www.penguinrep.org.
Photo by Andrew M. Horn: The cast of “The Fall to Earth” is, from left: Amelia Campbell, Michele Pawk and Laura Heisler.
This entry was posted on Monday, June 30th, 2008 at 4:19 pm by Peter D. Kramer.
Five years ago this month, Michele Pawk clutched her new Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a play as an alcoholic mother in "Hollywood Arms."
Starting tonight, she plays another mother in "The Fall to Earth" at Stony Point's Penguin Rep in a production that runs through July 20.
Pawk plays Fay Schorsch, a role created by Rondi Reed, who was this year's Best Featured Actress in a play for her work in "August: Osage County." Both plays began life at Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago.
In Joel Drake Johnson's "The Fall to Earth," Fay checks into "a typical chain motel in a small American town" with her daughter, Rachel.
It's not clear why they're here. It is clear that Fay is a nervous wreck. She speaks constantly in rapid-fire fashion, her daughter offering monosyllabic answers.
Rapid-fire she can handle, Pawk says.
"The thing about the memorization process for this play is the total non sequiturs," she says. "That's what's hard to remember. Her brain makes left turns.
"This is a woman who's deathly afraid of any silence or stillness," Pawk adds. "If she has to sit still for a moment, she might start thinking about the events" that brought her to this typical chain motel in this small American town.
There's a reason mother and daughter are here. There's a reason their relationship is strained. As events unfold in this single-act play, a police officer joins the action and the mystery unravels.
The three-person cast includes Pawk as Fay, Laura Heisler ("Coram Boy") as Rachel and Amelia Campbell as the cop. Campbell, a Tony nominee for "Our Country's Good," has worked with Penguin director Joe Brancato before, in "Tryst" Off-Broadway.
To Pawk, it's no mystery why she'll be in Rockland for a month this summer.
Fay drew her in.
"Joe sent me the script," she says. "We've been trying to do something together for a few years.
"He sent me the script and I fell in love with it - I don't know if love is the right word at this moment - but she's such a complicated, wonderful woman."
Fay is in mourning and is unpredictable.
"It's an interesting place to tap into, where you lose it completely," Pawk says. "The button for her that switches from on to off is really quick and obviously without any forethought or plan. It seems almost chemical when happens. That's been interesting to find."
The journey is a roller coaster of emotions, slights and rage that can take its toll on an actress. |
"Sometimes, plays like this that are so cathartic are really cleansing to do and don't exhaust you," she says. "And some plays are exhausting. I don't don't know quite where this one lays yet, because of the emotional journey. And it is an emotional journey."
One of the emotions Pawk experienced last week was apprehension, when the playwright dropped in on a rehearsal.
Pawk says she was nervous that Johnson wouldn't like what they'd done with his play - which he wrote in 2004 - and that it would be too late to fix it before tonight's opening.
She needn't have worried, the playwright says. |
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Reach Peter D. Kramer at pkramer@lohud.com or 914-694-5118. Read his "In the Wings" blog at www.theater.lohudblogs.com. |
Theatermania
Loose Lips
And speaking of brilliant acting, head up if you can to Penguin Rep in nearby Stony Point, New York, where Tony Award winner Michele Pawk is adding another extraordinary performance to her repetoire as Fay, a grief-stricken mother traveling with her estranged daughter (the excellent Laura Heisler), in Joel Drake Johnson's The Fall to Earth. Not your standard summer fare, to be sure, but this disturbing and occasionally hilarious play, beautifully directed by Joe Brancato, is well worth 90 minutes of your time.
