Posted: 8/17/15 at 7:21am
I know several board members have recently been up to Williamstown to see A Moon For the Misbegotten. Did anyone else also catch An Intervention, which is playing at the smaller Nikos Stage?
It's the American premiere of a two-character play by Mike Bartlett, whose Olivier-winning King Charles III is coming to Broadway in the fall. Originally, it was supposed to run as a double-bill with another British play; however, the other production was cancelled due to immigration issues. So, Williamstown is now presenting it as a stand-alone production.
Not to give too much away, but the play has two revolving casts: a male/female pairing (Betty Gilpin and Debargo Sanyal) and a male/male pairing (Josh Hamilton and Justin Long). The play was originally written for a man and a woman, but given that there's nothing essentially gender-specific about the characters in the text (they are just called A & B), it can theoretically work with any configuration. The two casts rotate performances and, on four occasions (including yesterday's matinee), both casts perform.
It's definitely a leap of faith to assume that your audience is going to like your play enough to watch it twice in a row. That said, I found this small play to be taut and stirring, and after the first performance, I couldn't wait to see it again. Without going into unnecessary spoilers, the two characters are best friends whose relationship is upended by personal and political factors: the personal being a new relationship, and the political being a war in the Middle East, which one character supports and the other passionately opposes. The play is essentially about how the personal and the political blend together and how our friendships are constructed around how we want to see people, not necessarily who people really are.
Both casts have their selling points, though it worked better with Gilpin and Sanyal. There was something kinetic about the male/female dynamic that was missing from Hamilton and Long's interpretation of a platonic heterosexual male friendship. Also, Betty Gilpin -- of whom I've heard but I don't think seen in anything before yesterday -- is a star in the making. What a committed, daring, and heartbreaking performance she is turning in.
The production is strongly directed by Lila Neugebauer, with subtle changes in pacing and blocking between the two casts. It's a thought-provoking play which I'm glad I saw. If you find yourself in Williamstown sometime over the next week, do yourself a favor and grab a ticket.
