Review
Chasing Manet
Primary Stages (59 E 59 Street Theaters)
April 8, 2009
Reviewed by Morgan Wycks
mwycks@nyconstage.orgListing Information
Tina Howe's Chasing Manet knows what it wants to be but has no idea how to get there. It limps along gracelessly despite the all-out investment of Jane Alexander as its central character.
The story, no matter the characters' trappings, is a simple one. A famous artist, Catherine Sargent, now almost blind, is imprisoned in a nursing home that she, of course, wants to escape. Her new roommate, Lennie Waltzer, is suffering from dementia that leaves her vulnerable or adventurous to Catherine, depending on how you look at it. The rest of the cast take on double and triple duty impersonating family members, other patients and hospital staff. We see the nursing home's daily activities and the accompanying depression (at least from our standpoint) the environment creates. Catherine hatches a plan to travel to Paris using Lennie as her eyes, a plan that should go horribly wrong except for the empathic bid of a staff member to wear blinders.
One critic I overheard likened Catherine and Lennie to Samuel Beckett characters to which I must respond, "Absolutely not." Just because they are aged and infirm does not make them Clov, Hamm, Winnie, etc., and even if the setting is bleak it's an entirely different landscape altogether. What Ms. Howe is after I believe is to trot out the "just because I'm old, handicapped, and/or incapacitated doesn't mean I don't have a vital existence anymore." Unfortunately, Ms. Howe tries desperately to make her metaphors, images and whimsical flights of her monologues to adhere to two stories that have lost their glue.
As Catherine's put-upon son, Jack Gilpin is stuck with a role I wouldn't envy any actor. As Lennie, Lynn Cohen plays right into the "cutes" that should offend the elderly, and though she conveys the fear of someone losing touch with reality effectively, it only underscores the selfishness of Catherine's using her. As Catherine, Ms. Alexander does everything she can to make her trial of captivity felt and you certainly come away understanding her snide bitterness and angry frustration. It is to Ms. Alexander's credit that you know who this woman was when she was an exhilarating, albeit difficult, captivating person.
Tony Straiges's set has an awkward floorplan that inhibits the flow of traffic but he cagily suspends wheelchairs over the playing area as a reminder that many of us will most likely end up in one. Michael Wilson's direction is uneven, often stranding Ms. Alexander in this difficult and unfinished play.
I have often found Ms. Howe's writing affective in its unique and quirky way, but here the dots don't connect. In fact, they often barely appear.
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