Opening NIGHT
by Amy Stewart
NORTH COAST JOURNAL Thursday, Nov. 6, 2003
SCOTLAND Road
I rarely have much to say about the director of a play, mostly because the directing, whether it is good or bad, is in some ways invisible to the audience. We sit in the theatre and watch the actors; it is their performance, on that particular evening that we have paid to see and that we respond to. This stance can be controversial, however. I have received a handful of letters over the last year defending what I consider to be the mediocre performance of an actor on the grounds that he or she was merely carrying out the director's orders and should not be held responsible for the outcome. (Strangely, no one has written to quarrel with a rave review of an actor's performance. In those cases, apparently, the credit belongs squarely with the actor and the director had nothing to do with it.)
But in the case of Redwood Curtain's Scotland Road, I must begin by saying: Well done, James Floss. At Friday night's performance, the costumes, the set and the music all came together seamlessly in a way that allowed the audience to see, quite clearly, the director's vision. It comes as an enormous relief to experience these sometimes disparate components working together like this.
Jayson Mohatt's set was so terrific that you must hear about it right off. There was a simple white stage cut in an abstract, angular shape that could have been a chunk of a room, a piece of decking from an ocean liner, or a hunk of free-floating ice. A couple of chairs and tables furnish the set without getting in the way, and two large panels--they could have been walls or windows or sails--served as doorways and helped to anchor the action on the stage. Behind them, carefully draped fabric and chilly blue lights were all it took to suggest the presence of an iceberg.
As you might have guessed, Scotland Road is a play about the Titanic. Playwright Jeffery Hatcher got the idea when he red a tabloid article about a Titanic survivor that was found floating on an iceberg. "There are times you go searching for a play idea," he wrote, "But on rare occasions, an idea will come galloping to you unbidden, leaping at you like a wet yellow Lab, knocking you to the ground and licking your face until you type." Scotland Road was one of those plays.
Randy Wayne plays John, a man obsessed with the fateful sinking of the ship 80 years earlier (the play takes place in the 1990s) and with his own great-great-grandfather, who died in the disaster. When a young woman (Carolyn Goin) is found on an iceberg and claims to be a survivor of the Titanic (though she appears not to have aged), John steps in and hires a doctor (Lara Ford) to look after her health while he grills her for information. The only other known survivor, Frances Kittle (Renee E. Grinell) is called in to authenticate the young woman's story.
It is a mystery wrapped in another mystery. None of the characters are who they seem to be, and the truth is elusive. And like a few other plays I've seen this year (Agnes of God, for instance) some of the drama is borrowed from events that so not happen onstage, but are vividly recalled by the characters. Just say the words "iceberg" and "lifeboat" and the audience will feel a chill. Our own familiarity with the story provides some of the emotion, which means the actors don't have to do all the heavy lifting.
That's not to say there were not some fine performances. I got the feeling that Floss encouraged the actors to give themselves over to their characters fully. Goin, the shipwreck survivor, was like a wild animal in the first act.; I was almost disappointed to see her regain her composure after the intermission. Grinell played the part of a trembling and bitter old woman with vigor and certainty. She was riveting to watch. Ford was sharp and controlled as the young doctor, and it was only Wayne, whose character John was perhaps the most complex of the four, who I felt had more to give. The revelations about John that come at the end of the play were somehow not as surprising or devastating as they could have been if he had come across as more mysterious and nuanced all along.
I have only one minor complaint on how the play was staged. Many of the scenes, particularly in the first act, are quite short, which meant that the audience was plunged into darkness every few minutes for a set change. The effect was disorienting and jarring, and seemed to break the spell of the action onstage. Perhaps the intent was to bring a gloomy and dreamlike air to the story, but there was just too much time spent in darkness, with the shuffling of feet and rustling of programs all around, for my taste.
One final comment: There was a moment of high drama near the end of the play in which the entire theatre seemed to roar and shake as if it were about to come loose from its mooring. It was one of the more exciting moments I've had at the little black box behind the Eureka Mall, and the effect alone is worth the price of admission.
Scotland Road continues at Redwood Curtain on Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings at 8 p.m. through Nov. 22, with one Sunday matinee at 2 p.m. on Nov. 16. there will be a post-show discussion with the actors Nov. 7. Tickets are $11, and on Thursdays you can get a second ticket for only $5. Call 443-7688 for reservations, or purchase tickets online at www.redwoodcurtain.com.