Love and Its Discontents
Lovers
Wall Street Journal
Terry Teachout
September 27, 2012
If life were fair, Brian Friel, the foremost living playwright in the English-speaking world, would have won a Nobel Prize long ago. Instead he labors in comparative obscurity, loved and respected by all who care about theater but mostly unknown to the American public at large. Only two of his plays, "Faith Healer" and "Translations," have been mounted on Broadway in the past decade and a half. Were it not for the Irish Repertory Theatre, which has gone out of its way to keep Mr. Friel's work in front of New York audiences, he might be even less well known.
The good news is that two of Mr. Friel's best plays are being done Off Broadway this fall. Not only will the Irish Rep be putting on "The Freedom of the City" next month, but TACT/The Actors Company Theatre, which covered itself in glory last season with its revival of Neil Simon's "Lost in Yonkers," is now presenting the very first professional staging of "Lovers" to be seen in New York since the play received its Broadway premiere in 1968.
"Lovers" is a double bill of dark romantic comedies that take the grimmest possible view of love and its discontents. In "Winners," we meet Mag and Joe (Justine Salata and Cameron Scoggins), a starry-eyed teenage couple whose fast-approaching marriage is about to be short-circuited by the uncaring hand of fate. "Losers," by contrast, is a bitter little farce about a pair of middle-age lovers (Kati Brazda and James Riordan) whose romance runs aground on the cold, hard shoal of Irish Catholicism at its most priggish.
Part of Mr. Friel's genius lies in the seamlessness with which he integrates more or less straightforward realism and narrator-driven presentationalism. "Winners" is a prime example of his technique at its most supple. In between glimpses of the young lovers at play, we hear from a two-person Greek chorus (played by Ms. Brazda and Mr. Riordan) who describe the life of their village in the dispassionate, "Dragnet"-like tones of a police report. Bit by bit it becomes clear that what we are hearing is a police report, and that Mag and Joe are... well, I'll let you guess the rest. That Mr. Friel should have chosen to call their story "Winners" adds yet another layer of irony to this blackly bittersweet tale of life as it really is.
Drew Barr has directed "Lovers" with the deceptive simplicity of a fable. The impact of his staging is heightened by Brett J. Banakis's uncomplicated set, a wall covered with shabby wallpaper that slashes diagonally across the stage like a scar. The ceiling atop the wall creates a two-tiered space that Mr. Barr uses with skill and subtlety. Daniel Kluger, who wrote the music for the marvelous American Players Theatre production of David Hare's "Skylight" reviewed in this space last week, has done just as well by "Lovers," penning a wistful, viola-colored score that points up the play's emotions without ever overwhelming them.
I haven't said much about the actors because you'll scarcely notice them. All you see in "Lovers" are Mr. Friel's small-town characters, realized so fully (by Mr. Riordan and Ms. Salata in particular) that they give the impression of having been played by ordinary people. Don't be fooled, though: Mr. Barr's cast knows just what to do with Mr. Friel's dialogue. Like Horton Foote and August Wilson, he takes everyday speech and turns it into something not too far removed from poetry. He has a great ear—and a great heart.