Sara Shearer and Kathleen Taylor (photo by Doug Engalla)
Reviewed by Steven Leigh Morris
The Group Rep
Through Feb. 23
RECOMMENDED
John Patrick was a Pulitzer- and Tony Award-winning playwright (Teahouse of the August Moon) and screenwriter who died in 1995, at the age of 90. His play The Curious Savage is a 1950 relic, a kind of ancestor of Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Tom Topor’s Nuts, in its empathetic treatment of wounded souls who have lost their minds, contrasted against the greed and moral vacuousness of people who are functioning just fine.
This is, of course, a sentimental notion and would seem to be a throwback in 2025, but it’s not — at least not in Doug Engalla’s staging for Group Rep. Engalla’s production is so sufficiently restrained and earnest that it oozes charm. The other factor that works in its favor is this particular cultural/political moment, so supercharged with chaos and cruelty by people with power, that the play’s call for kindness works not just as antidotal balm but as an appeal to employ empathy as a form of rebellion.
The teddy-bear wielding central character, Ethel P. Savage (Sara Shearer), is an elderly lodger in the wing of a home that’s a quasi-mental institution called The Cloisters. In residence there, she’s trying to ward off the approaches of her step-children — a notoriously unpopular senator (Danny Salay) a meek judge (Steve Young) whose rulings keep getting overturned, and a self-proclaimed ingenue (Kathleen Taylor). They all seek access to Ethel’s $10 million inheritance from her late husband. She’s hiding it somewhere in bond notes, and nobody but Ethel knows where. Her aim is to give it away to strangers in order to fund impractical yet life enhancing dreams they may have. The constant twinkle in actress Shearer’s eye forms not only the spark to her delightful performance, it also shines mockery on the figures of authority and position that her stepchildren represent.
Meanwhile, Ethel’s scarred housemates, serving as witnesses, have withdrawn into a world of delusions, a response to the various traumas they’ve suffered: Florence (Maria Kress) lost her infant child and carries a baby doll as a substitute, though she insists he’s now 8 years old. Hannibal (Patrick Anthony), once a statistician, was replaced by a calculator (the 1950s version of AI) and now imagines himself a classical violinist, giving impromptu, shudder-inducing performances on the broken-stringed instrument. Jeffrey (Christopher Landis), a military pilot shot down in WWII, uses one hand to hide a scar that no longer exists, if it ever did. Jessica Kent portrays Fairy May, an unkempt young woman who imagines herself as a debutante; while Julie Davis’s Mrs. Paddy, a victim of spousal abuse, thinks of herself as a great painter, though her artistry matches that of violinist Hannibal. Her husband once told her to “shut up” and she’s barely spoken since, except to intone lists of all the things she hates.
Also in the dozen characters are Miss Wilhelmina, the resident nurse, portrayed by Amy Shaughnessy with such soothing kindness that she’s the antithesis of Nurse Ratched in Cuckoo’s Nest. She’s actually the wife of one resident, the ex-fighter pilot, Jeffrey, but since his crash, he doesn’t recall her. She took on the job at The Cloisters, waiting for him to remember. Also on staff is a similarly gentle Doctor Emmett (Lloyd Pedersen).
The humor bubbles over the pathos, as in a play by George Bernard Shaw, and director Engalla just about keeps farce at bay, which serves well the play’s underlying intelligence and humanity.
Mareli Mitchel-Shield’s warm, detailed interior set fully supports the genial atmosphere that can’t even be punctured by the horrible motives of Ethel’s stepchildren.
“I had hoped to make them look like fools so they might look with understanding on the fools of good heart,” explains Ethel to Dr. Emmett. He asks her who are the fools of good heart. “I’d say — those who gamble on people, and invest in kindness — those who doubt that position means privilege. . . And, of course, the rebels with no fear of failure.”
In a recent interview, scholar on autocracy Andrea Chalupa argues that “in an age of cruelty, empathy becomes a beautiful act of rebellion.” Did the producers of this mid-20th century play ever imagine, when they were planning this production, how, 75-years after its New York debut, it would arrive at such a perfect moment for that idea to resonate?
The Group Rep Lonny Chapman Theatre (Main Stage) 10900 Burbank Blvd., North Hollywood; Fri.-Sat., 8 pm, Sun., 2 pm; thru Feb. 23. https://thegrouprep.com/show/the-curious-savage/ Running time: Two hours with intermission.
