The Pavilion - Review of a Play
Dec. 19th, 2010 10:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatSaw the play The Pavilion last night at the South Carolina Repertory Theater. It's by Craig Wright - who according to the playbill - also wrote for Six Feet Under, Lost, Brothers & Sisters, Dirty Sexy Money and The United States of Tara. The Pavilion was nominated for a Pulitzer and the American Theater Critics Association Best New Play Award.
Popster liked it, Momster thought it was a bit on the preachy side (heavy and long existentialist monologues). Odd play. But demonstrative of how plot can often be the least interesting aspect of a story. The plot is rather simple. A 37 year old man goes to his 20 year high school reunion at the Pavilion, which is about to be demolished to make way for a parking lot. His goal is to reunite with his high-school sweetheart, whom he dumped twenty-years ago when she got pregnant with his kid. He wants to make things right with her, to start again.
The theme is that you can't really do that, all you can do is let go of the past and go forward.
You can revisit the past, even reminisce, and possibly forgive, but you can't change it or pretend it never happened.
It's a three person play, with a scant set. The narrator - a guy - plays all the former classmates, the ominiscent narrator or stage manager, and sets the overall tone, setting, and
stage. It's in this respect at least, similar to Thornton Wilder's Our Town, except Wilder's play is a bit more ambitious than Wright's and broader in scope. Here, we have what amounts to a moment in time - how each person is affected by others, how none are necessarily "happy" or
necessarily "secure" in their lives, so much as making the best of things. Peter - the protagonist wants to fix his life. He's a psychologist, living out in LA with a 23 year old girl-friend who paints still lifes. And he feels as if he's on the wrong path, the wrong train, that somewhere along the way - he took the wrong route. 17 minutes threw him off. If he can just reunite with Kari, his high school sweet heart, marry her, live with her, all will be well.
He decides leaving her set his course off. He would have been happier if he'd stayed. Kari for her part, disagrees - she's married to Hans. A golf pro. Who saved her from ill-repute. She'd had an abortion after Peter dumped her. And married Hans. And got a job in a bank, as the safety deposit clerk. Like Peter, she too hears everyone else's problems...digests them, yet never voices her own. And she harbors resentment towards Peter for the choices he made, as well as her own.
While Peter and Kari attempt to connect, they are interupted and often enter into discussions with other classmates, listening to snippets of each classmates' life. The narrator, one man, plays each of these classmates. And to give him credit he does a good job, with no costume changes, merely wearing white scrubs, and barefoot, he morphs into each character through vocal mannerisms and body language never quite falling into farce or caricature. This technique not only makes the play cheaper to produce, but it also acts as a metaphor for the self-asorption of the characters. As Kari points out to Peter - all Peter sees is himself, his needs. As does Kari. As, says the narrator, everyone. We all see ourselves as the lead character, everyone else blurs together. While they listen to their classmates, they never quite see or connect or hear them. They've blurred into one person. And if you listen to the other classmate's issues, Kari and Peter's doomed romance and current issues, are relatively minor, but not to them.
We're told the play is about time. At each interval, we're told by the narrator what time it is.
And how time can't be changed or altered. Not for one person. Not for two. Not for many. It heads in one direction only. But the play is also a psychological one on perception.
It's by no means perfect, flawed in a few places. The monologues drug it a bit, and the plot felt a bit cliche as did the humor. But it was performed. And there are bits in it that resonate long afterwards - due to how it is presented. Or the angle the playwright chose to present it. The idea of having one person play all the former classmates, male and female, and the scant staging, the Our Town feel to the proceedings...demonstrating once again that it is how we tell our stories that often makes the most difference and has the greatest impact.
Popster liked it, Momster thought it was a bit on the preachy side (heavy and long existentialist monologues). Odd play. But demonstrative of how plot can often be the least interesting aspect of a story. The plot is rather simple. A 37 year old man goes to his 20 year high school reunion at the Pavilion, which is about to be demolished to make way for a parking lot. His goal is to reunite with his high-school sweetheart, whom he dumped twenty-years ago when she got pregnant with his kid. He wants to make things right with her, to start again.
The theme is that you can't really do that, all you can do is let go of the past and go forward.
You can revisit the past, even reminisce, and possibly forgive, but you can't change it or pretend it never happened.
It's a three person play, with a scant set. The narrator - a guy - plays all the former classmates, the ominiscent narrator or stage manager, and sets the overall tone, setting, and
stage. It's in this respect at least, similar to Thornton Wilder's Our Town, except Wilder's play is a bit more ambitious than Wright's and broader in scope. Here, we have what amounts to a moment in time - how each person is affected by others, how none are necessarily "happy" or
necessarily "secure" in their lives, so much as making the best of things. Peter - the protagonist wants to fix his life. He's a psychologist, living out in LA with a 23 year old girl-friend who paints still lifes. And he feels as if he's on the wrong path, the wrong train, that somewhere along the way - he took the wrong route. 17 minutes threw him off. If he can just reunite with Kari, his high school sweet heart, marry her, live with her, all will be well.
He decides leaving her set his course off. He would have been happier if he'd stayed. Kari for her part, disagrees - she's married to Hans. A golf pro. Who saved her from ill-repute. She'd had an abortion after Peter dumped her. And married Hans. And got a job in a bank, as the safety deposit clerk. Like Peter, she too hears everyone else's problems...digests them, yet never voices her own. And she harbors resentment towards Peter for the choices he made, as well as her own.
While Peter and Kari attempt to connect, they are interupted and often enter into discussions with other classmates, listening to snippets of each classmates' life. The narrator, one man, plays each of these classmates. And to give him credit he does a good job, with no costume changes, merely wearing white scrubs, and barefoot, he morphs into each character through vocal mannerisms and body language never quite falling into farce or caricature. This technique not only makes the play cheaper to produce, but it also acts as a metaphor for the self-asorption of the characters. As Kari points out to Peter - all Peter sees is himself, his needs. As does Kari. As, says the narrator, everyone. We all see ourselves as the lead character, everyone else blurs together. While they listen to their classmates, they never quite see or connect or hear them. They've blurred into one person. And if you listen to the other classmate's issues, Kari and Peter's doomed romance and current issues, are relatively minor, but not to them.
We're told the play is about time. At each interval, we're told by the narrator what time it is.
And how time can't be changed or altered. Not for one person. Not for two. Not for many. It heads in one direction only. But the play is also a psychological one on perception.
It's by no means perfect, flawed in a few places. The monologues drug it a bit, and the plot felt a bit cliche as did the humor. But it was performed. And there are bits in it that resonate long afterwards - due to how it is presented. Or the angle the playwright chose to present it. The idea of having one person play all the former classmates, male and female, and the scant staging, the Our Town feel to the proceedings...demonstrating once again that it is how we tell our stories that often makes the most difference and has the greatest impact.