A Long But Worthwhile Day
⊆ April 24th, 2006 by courtney | ˜By Fiona Zublin
A Bright Room Called Day – Rorschach Theatre
Many plays are too long. It’s a common trait; actors like to act slowly, playwrights like to cram as much as possible into the script, since they’ve already got you in your seat. A lot of the plays that are too long can be forgiven, because their quality deserves such length. The rest make an audience more and more restless, knowing that someday they will be allowed to go home and that it’s easier not to struggle. A Bright Room Called Day, at Rorschach Theater, teeters on the edge of being worth the two and a half hours.
Sometime during the 1980s, Tony Kushner decided to write a play about times when the radical right is taking over society, and the tiny windows of opportunity during which the left has a chance to stop it. It was relevant when he wrote it and it is relevant now; it’s no wonder Rorschach chose to revive A Bright Room Called Day this season. Kushner makes his point through an examination of a group of intellectual Communist activists in 1930s Berlin. His protagonist is Agnes (Lindsay Allen), a gentile actress who begins as part of this group, but ultimately distances herself from anything that puts her in danger from the ever-more-powerful Nazi government. She lives with her lover, Vealtninc Husz (Grady Weatherford), in a cozy Berlin apartment, where she receives her friends: Baz (a memorable Alexander Strain), a homosexual who believes that fascism is a result of sexual frustration, Annabella (Cam Magee), a painter who designs posters for the Party, and Paulinka (Lauren Judith Krizner), a minor movie star whose demeanor can only be described as Weimar Samantha Jones.
Add to this a screen above the stage, on which are projected scene titles, updates on the political and social climate of Berlin, and short videos documenting Zillah (Elizabeth Chomko), a teenage conspiracy theorist of the 1980s who writes hate mail to Ronald Reagan and offers us pretentious and vague vignettes, such as a music video in which she lipsynchs a Sinatra song in time to a montage of Hitler videos and pictures.
Kushner’s dialogue is occasionally illuminating, as his character ponder humanity and art in the face of unimaginable evil. Much of what they say is poetic, if you can repress the voice in the back of your head that will occasionally rear up and remind you that people don’t talk like that. Though a lot of the lines do roll off the tongue, just as many carry a false poeticism that takes an audience out of the moment.
But the heart of the problem is this: A Bright Room Called Day is about a woman who stayed in Germany, who denied what was happening because she couldn’t bear to give up her apartment. And we, with our 20-20 hindsight, can’t identify with that, and so our relationship with the protagonist is irrevocably damaged. Though Lindsay Allen offers several gut-wrenchingly tragic scenes, she fails to infuse Agnes with any charisma—and thus it is difficult to care about her. Director Rahaleh Nassri has a great script on her hands—though it is unfortunately mired in a half-hour of material that should have been cut.
Kushner’s script is undeniably an achievement, bizarre and occasionally breathtaking. There are a few elements that just don’t work—such as a scene where the Devil (Matt Dunphy) appears in human form—and a few that are confusing, like the repeated appearance of an aged beggar woman who turns out to be integrally connected to Agnes.
One actress shines in every one of the few moments she is onstage: Katie Atkinson as a minor functionary of the German Communist Party constantly comes across as sympathetic and memorable. The role is not large, but Atkinson makes the most of it.
Worth mention is Nathaniel John Sebastian Sinnott’s lighting design, which intensifies already climactic moments by projecting giant shadows of the actors on the yellowing walls of Agnes’ apartment.
A Bright Room Called Day is too long. But, if you are in the mood for a play of crushing depression that somehow offers hope—for the fact that the play is relevant today means that there is hope—then Rorschach Theater offers an engaging evening’s entertainment.
Photos by
Colin Hovde
