Off-Off-Broadway Theater Review: EASTER (August Strindberg Repertory Theatre)

NO RESURRECTION HERE

While the snow is thawing and the flowers are getting ready to shoot out of the soil, the August Strindberg Repertory Theatre, a newly-formed company that’s dedicated to bringing Strindberg to American audiences, presents an ambitious production of Easter which is sure to get you reflecting on, and perhaps preparing for, the Christian holiday of the same title. Adapted from a semi-autobiographical work that tackles impending doom, death and resurrection, this drama, originally set in a Swedish coastal down in 1901, has been repackaged into 1958 Harlem starring an all-Black cast.  While the material is deliciously complex and there are some individual, solid performances, the show never graduates from being sedate and contemplative. In this sense, it mirrors the standard tone of the preceding weeks of Easter, but falls short of being entertaining or engrossing.

Easter slowly unfurls like a vigil, with the action seemingly on the sidelines – instead of being possessed with real life. To illustrate that, Donna Miskind’s larger-than-life windows, a chalk drawing taken to the next level, towers over the actors to remind the audience that the characters can see bad things coming on the horizon…and with good reason.

Comprised of matriarch Mrs. Morgan, son Ellis, daughter Lenora, and Ellis’ son, Benjamin, the Morgan family is traveling under a dark cloud that won’t seem to let up.  The curse in the family begins with the unseen Mr. Morgan’s mishandling of orphan money, for which he is summarily jailed; his behavior sets the family on a downhill course that affects each member in a destructive or debilitating way.

Ellis’s relationships are adversely affected, as his fiancée Christine (Chudney Sykes) is noncommittal, most likely because of the disgraceful circumstances that surround his family. Lenora, fresh out of the asylum after suffering a nervous breakdown, surprisingly arrives to bring peace, hope and calm, but not without first being suspected of stealing an Easter lily from a flower shop.  Benjamin (DeSean Stokes) is challenged academically, but more so by his father’s undue pressure on him to do well, and the whole family quakes in their boots each time Lindy (Jolie Garrett), a major creditor eyeing the family furniture, is nearby..

With all of the subplots emanating from the father’s misdeeds, Strindberg has created many compelling situations for dramatic chaos. Unfortunately, nothing and no one, with the exception of the dreaded Lindy, ever seems to sizzle. Written and staged in three acts that coincide with, and are named after, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday, Easter never quite makes it to the jubilant time of resurrection. As the family laments their lot and prepares for even more gloom, a stasis persists. Easter is typically a time for mourning, pondering and remembering, and the staging is consistent with how people traditionally welcome, not celebrate, the three days preceding Easter. Hence, while true to the theme, none of those states create a captivating and exhilarating night of theater.

Although Nathan James energetically enters the stage as Ellis, his interactions with the subdued Sykes progressively diminish it.  The lack of emotional connection between them is understandable given their situation, but it makes it difficult to root or even care for their future together.  Carol Carter’s fearfulness as Mrs. Morgan adds humor and is great to watch, but she spends too much of her time exiting and entering the stage.  As Lenora, one that is emotionally and mentally under duress, Ley Smith has the meatiest role of them all, but conveys her state with conventional choices; she makes an earnest attempt to represent the Christ figure in some ways, but doesn’t quite nail the role; her sweetness, however, does earn the line, “Poor Lenora.  So unfortunate herself yet can make others happy.”

Director Robert Greer does his best, but is challenged with creating separate moments in the theatre’s small blackbox space, consistently lit by Miriam Crowe and Amanda Bestor-Siegal. In one scene, Ellis mentions that he hears his mother coming when we don’t hear her footsteps or even a rustling; and later on, Ellis and Christine discuss Mrs. Morgan in what should be a private moment, but it happens within her earshot because there is nowhere onstage for her to go.

Although Easter is full of references to suffering, forgiveness and redemption, it is the mere glimpse of the latter and not the full manifestation that makes the play somewhat frustrating to watch. After watching the family’s sadness and misfortune, you may yearn for exultation in the end, but you never get it. Moreover, there is not enough of a distinction between Acts One and Two to define the coming doom and actual death. The show begins with sadness but never upgrades to acute pain or anguish. No one cries or experiences death onstage, even on an emotional level. As a result, by the time Easter concludes, one is left wanting much more punctuation and payoff than one is given.  Strindberg may have left the moment pregnant in such a way, but it’s a far cry from what the world experiences the following day.

photos by Adele Bossard and Jonathan Slaff

Easter
August Strindberg Repertory Theatre
Gene Frankel Theatre, 24 Bond Street
scheduled to end on March 31, 2013
for tickets, call 212-868-4444 or visit http://www.smarttix.com