I Wanna Hold Your Hand

Reviewed by Sarah Tuft
Theatre of NOTE
Through August 30

Photo by Ido Berstein

Erik Patterson’s new play captures the unique communion of strangers thrown together by extreme circumstances. Like on that doomed flight when the passenger next to you becomes your best friend, the fellow travelers of Patterson’s hospital waiting room forge bonds based on the instant intimacy of their common tragedy. But whereas in-flight terror is expressed through screams and clawing, in Patterson’s waiting room, it’s endless rounds of Go Fish and sandwiches. Boredom can be treacherous, but it’s the heady mix of hope and fear that fuels confessions and exerts pressure to reveal secrets.

Paul (Nicholas S. Williams) and his sister, Julia (Alina Phelan) pray for their mother (Judith Ann Levitt) to wake from her coma while Julia’s more (or less) dutiful husband, Josh (Keston John) struggles to find the right words, literally for his crossword puzzle, figuratively as he tiptoes through the minefield of a relationship on life support. Their crisis intersects with that of Ada (Kirsten Vangsness) whose fiancé, Frank (Phil Ward), has also suffered a coma-inducing aneurism, and later the resulting aphasia, which robs him of easy language.

Love of language runs throughout I Wanna Hold Your Hand. In Paul’s opening monologue, he admits to having a teacher’s preoccupation with proper grammar. With his mother poised on the precipice between present and past, he’s especially fussy about tenses. But when he cites a student’s words of wisdom, “Coincidences are just the universe being lazy” he reveals what might be the central idea of this play – coming to terms with the randomness of it all. Even outside the hospital, life defies those structures invented to measure, control and impose order upon it. Frank, a mapmaker, is no longer able to make maps. Marriage, a structure created to contain love and manage lust, does little to tame either.

As Paul, Williams balances affability with the discomfort of a man in denial. Phelan, as Julia, captures the inevitable warmth and weightlessness of the daughter of a “nice” woman. As Julia’s husband, Josh, John is pitch-perfect as the outsider judged for his lack of wits but with plenty to spare. Vangsness is luminous as Ada – an unexpected revelation that grows from her first panicked entrance. Both Levitt and Ward masterfully portray the humanity beneath their affliction – Levitt showing her gentility even as her condition robs her of self-censorship, and Ward revealing that a newly disabled man can also be a strong one.

Director McKerrin Kelly creates a tender fabric of connections and missed connections, with a compassionate unifying vision.

Although I Wanna Hold Your Hand starts with words, it ends with the image of oranges. “Please eat me,” they say. And it makes them all happy. Perhaps this is where happiness lies . . . when we move from grasping at the structures we invent to contain the world, to surrendering to its uncontainable beauty.
 

Theatre of NOTE, 1517 N. Cahuenga Blvd., Hlywd.; Thurs.-Sat. 8p.m.; Sun. 7p.m.; through August 30. (323) 856-8611, theatreofnote.com

The Cherry Orchard

Reviewed by Terry Morgan
Pacific Resident Theatre
Through Sept. 21

Photo by Vitor Martins

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There have always been political takes of Anton Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard. Some have described it as a condemnation of the idle aristocracy, a precursor to the Russian Revolution. Others saw it as a kind farewell to a vanishing class that is being supplanted by rapacious businessmen who only find beauty in money. The play isn’t quite so simple, because Chekhov wasn’t just interested in a message, of course, as much as he was intrigued by the complexities of people. Director Dana Jackson knows this, and the new production at Pacific Resident Theatre gracefully reflects Chekhov’s funny, sad, gentle wisdom.

Ranevskaya (Marilyn Fox) and her daughter Anya (Kelsey Ritter) have returned to their Russian ancestral home after years away in Paris. They’re welcomed back by Ranevskaya’s ineffectual brother Gaev (Bruce French) and her adopted daughter Varya (Tania Getty), who are glad to see them again. Eternal student Trofimov (Kyle Johnston) quickly begins romancing Anya, and landowner Simeonov-Pishchik (Armazd Stepanian) loses no time asking for loans. It’s businessman Lopakhin, however, who’s most pleased to see Ranevskaya, offering her a way to prevent impending bankruptcy by selling the beloved family cherry orchard.

Fox’s Ranevskaya glides about in a cloud comprised of giddy happiness and dreamy memories of her past, which mostly protects her from thinking about the immediate future. Fox makes it clear, however, that underneath that oblivious façade is fear, especially in one startling scene where she tears into Trofimov with vicious and unexpected cruelty. French brings a sympathetic take to the well meaning gasbag Gaev, and Ritter sweetly portrays Anya’s surprising kindness and strength.

Most striking, however, is Conte’s businessman Lopakhin. The performance brims energy and comes limned with skill. He chooses to play Lopakhin as genuinely concerned for the family’s welfare, and subsequently ever more frustrated with their inability to act to save themselves. Thus in the end, when Lopakhin has finally acted in his own interests, the way in which Conte displays the man’s uncontainable joy and gloating — quickly realizing it’s shared by nobody else — is almost shocking, and an expert piece of acting.

Stepanian is equally excellent in the smaller role of Simeonov-Pishchik, completely believable and compelling. Although his role is largely comic, he succeeds in revealing the character’s underlying desperation in a moment where he utterly panics upon thinking he’s lost some money loaned to him. Getty does fine work as the intelligent and despairing Varya, and her final scene with Lopakhin is heartbreaking. Johnston gets Trofimov’s arrogance just right, blasting the Russian intelligentsia with vigor in a speech that reads like something possibly taken from Chekhov’s diary. Jack Winnick is memorably good as the ailing old servant Firs, and Scott Jackson is sourly amusing as the servant and wannabe Parisian, Yasha.

Jackson gets good performances from her ensemble and manages all of the various plotlines with a steady hand. Two of her staging moments stand out, from an act opening where the crowd at a party is silhouetted against the light of a blue backdrop as if they are mere shadows that will soon be gone, to the final moment of Firs alone in the dark house, curled up on a chaise longue like an abandoned child.

This is a respectful and enjoyable production of Chekhov’s classic. One should appreciate it while it’s here, because, like the lovely cherry orchard, it will soon be gone.

Pacific Resident Theatre, 703 Venice Blvd., Venice. Thurs.-Sat. 8 p.m., Sun. 3 p.m.; through September 21. PacificResidentTheatre.com