I saw it yesterday. It was a chore to sit through--a rather stagnant play that doesn't really get cooking until twenty minutes before the final curtain comes down, coupled with a production that appears to accentuate every weakness in the text. As others have noted, the first act functions solely as a sort of exposition, although only a few things revealed (such as how Elsa and Miss Helen met, and the kind of work Helen is doing) really have anything to do with the meat of the story. The second act is comprised mostly of banal interactions between Elsa, Miss Helen, and the town pastor (Dale's character), which I suppose is meant to build the tension that culminates in a show-off of sorts between the three in the play's denouement. The problem is that the dialogue throughout is so boring and unengaging that by the time the actual theatrical business gets underway, the viewer is so disengaged that they don't care anymore.
Gordon Edelstein's production suffers from serious pacing issues. Act 1--basically a long conversation between Elsa and Miss Helen--feels endless. I looked at my watch, sure that nearly an hour had passed, only to find that the action had been going on for less than twenty minutes. Act 2 was oddly static, as well. There is a long stretch in which Gugino is completely visible, doing nothing, and then is expected to immediately re-integrate into the scene. Likewise, during a conversation between Elsa and Marius about Miss Helen's well-being, Harris sits with her back to the audience for what feels like twenty minutes, so that we get no facial reaction from her as these two other people discuss her in her presence. Odd.
Harris is fine, nothing more and nothing less. (The last time I said negative things about a performance she gave, people said some very mean things to me on here, as if her status as legend puts her above reproach) She didn't call for lines, yet her seemingly recent mastery of the script precluded her from giving much of a performance. She nailed Miss Helen's long monologue in Act 2--the play's one true theatrical moment, to my mind--but for the rest of the play, she was just kind of there. That said, Miss Helen is a surprisingly uninteresting character, save for that one monologue, so it wasn't as if there was much she could do.
Dale did seem to have trouble with his lines and his pacing, often coming in too soon on a line and then stopping himself. Perhaps he will be able to nail down more of a character when he gets comfortable with the text. Gugino was quite fine--I find her to be an exciting stage actress--in a role that doesn't have many shades.
The set and lighting are stunning. That's about the nicest thing I can say.
"You travel alone because other people are only there to remind you how much that hook hurts that we all bit down on. Wait for that one day we can bite free and get back out there in space where we belong, sail back over water, over skies, into space, the hook finally out of our mouths and we wander back out there in space spawning to other planets never to return hurrah to earth and we'll look back and can't even see these lives here anymore. Only the taste of blood to remind us we ever existed. The earth is small. We're gone. We're dead. We're safe."
-John Guare, Landscape of the Body
