Ghost Stories: The Shawl **** & Prairie du Chien **

In the run-up to their 30th anniversary season, Atlantic Theater Company is presenting two early one-act plays by the group’s co-founder David Mamet on Stage 2. 

“Prairie du Chien” takes place at 3 a.m. in the parlor car of a train speeding across Wisconsin in 1910. On one end of the car a slick card dealer (Nate Dendy) keeps winning at gin at the expense of another passenger (Jim Frangione). At the other end of the car, a traveling salesman (Atlantic founding member Jordan Lage) is telling a ghost tale of jealousy, murder and suicide to a father (Jason Ritter) whose young son (Henry Kellemen) is asleep next to him. A porter (Dereks Thomas) appears from time to time. The salesman’s story was not that interesting, at least the portion I was able to hear. Lage speaks so softly that he was often drowned out by the card players’ banter and the frequent squeaking of the theater’s ancient seats. There is a brief outburst of violence when the gin player accuses the dealer of cheating. That’s about it. Lauren Helpern’s set is evocative. Although the program lists a violence consultant (J. David Brimmer), no sound designer is credited. This omission is unfortunate, because the background noise sounded more like the tumble of a clothes dryer than the clackety-clack of a train.

“The Shawl,” from 1985, is a far more interesting proposition. Miss A (founding member Mary McCann) consults a medium named John (Arliss Howard) about a problem involving her late mother. In the first scene he skillfully teases information out of her to gain her confidence. In the second scene John explains his methods to his hunky young acolyte/boy toy Charles (Ritter again), who wants to learn the trade and hopes that somehow the supernatural really is involved. Charles is broke and threatens to leave John if he doesn’t bring in some money soon. The next meeting between Miss A and John takes some surprising turns. Their final scene together ends on a delightfully equivocal note. Howard and McCann are both superb. The production has one major flaw. The table at which John and Miss A sit is below the stage at the side. Since it is at the same level as the front row of seats, much of the view is blocked by the audience’s heads. I can’t imagine why the director (founding member Scott Zigler) made that choice.

In any case, it was entertaining to see two pieces written by Mamet when his voice was still fresh. 

Running time: one hour, 40 minutes including intermission. NOTE: Do not get seats in Row A. It’s behind row AA and not elevated.

Scenes from a Marriage ***

A clever friend referred to Ivo van Hove as a “destination director.” When he directs a play, the main attraction for many people is to see what he has done with the material rather than to see the work itself. Although his relationship with New York Theatre Workshop goes back to 1996, I have thus far avoided seeing any of his productions. Perhaps I have an innate suspicion of directors who think they know better than playwrights or filmmakers. In any case, his adaptation of Ingmar Bergman’s superb television series and theatrical film was on my NYTW subscription, so I attended today’s preview. Van Hove’s first directorial stroke was to assign the roles of Johan and Marianne to three different couples portraying them at different stages of their marriage — Alex Hurt and Susannah Flood at the 10-year mark, Dallas Roberts and Roslyn Ruff a few years later, and Arliss Howard and Tina Benko at the moment they separate. Act One consists of three scenes roughly corresponding to the first three chapters of the filmed version. The gimmick is that the three scenes are performed simultaneously in three different areas of the theater. The audience moves from area to area in the order prescribed by the color of the wristband received upon arrival. I was in the pink group and saw the scenes in 3-1-2 time sequence. This was unfortunate because each scene had less impact than the preceding one. Howard and Benko are by far the strongest couple and, I thought, Roberts and Ruff are the least effective and have the weakest scene. Since the partitions are not soundproof, the audience hears snippets of dialogue and slamming doors from the other two scenes. No doubt this was a directorial choice. After a 30-minute intermission, the entire audience returns to the full theater, now configured in the round. Act Two follows the course of their post-separation relationship. Van Hove’s next distraction is that the opening scene of Act Two is played with all three couples on stage, sometimes speaking in unison, sometimes fugally, and sometimes changing partners in mid-sentence. Tripling the roles did not serve any purpose to me other than to demonstrate the director’s cleverness. The final two scenes are much more conventional and even touched by tenderness. The question I was left with at play’s end was “Why?” The film is regarded by many as a masterpiece and the acting by Erland Josephson and Liv Ulmann was incredible. Although much of the acting here is fine and the production is never boring, nothing approaches the film’s level, so I must again ask “Why mess with success?” The only answer I can think of is that the director wanted to. Running time: 3 hours, 30 minutes including 30-minute intermission.

CQ/CX **

(Please click on the title to see the full review.)
First, the title: it's a newsroom symbol for "fact verified" and "fact corrected." Not exactly a grabber.
Alas, neither is this new play, by former Times news assistant Gabe McKinley, now in an Atlantic Theater Company production at the Peter Norton Space. The Atlantic is billing it as a "docudrama," which is a very tricky genre. What is the value of reanimating a decade-old scandal, unless it is to provide new insight, clarify the context and motivation or make it more coherent dramatically? Alas, CQ/CX does not really succeed at any of these things. It presents real-life identifiable New York Times figures under slightly altered names, along with characters who may or may not be fictionalized. The imagined conversations and monologues of Times honchos as played by David Pittu, Arliss Howard, Peter Jay Fernandez and Tim Hopper deliberately include several remarks that, colored by the wisdom of hindsight, now sound either foolish or ironic and allow the audience to feel superior. The relations among the three interns in the Times diversity program - a black man, an Hispanic woman and a Jew, respectively played by Kobi Libii, Sheila Tapia and Steve Rosen -- are ploddingly depicted. The old editor played by Larry Bryggman adds a note of pathos, but has little to do with the main action. The biggest flaw is the version of Jayson Blair written by McKinley and played by Libii. Either the role is poorly written or his acting is not up to snuff or both. We leave the theater with no deeper understanding of why he did what he did, which makes the whole proceeding rather pointless. David Levaux directed. The production values are all first-rate, but for me that only emphasized that the play isn't. Running time: 2 hours, 20 minutes including an intermission.