Natural Affection
Natural Affection
Wolf Entertainment
William Wolf
It was tragic that William Inge’s play flopped when it opened on Broadway in 1963, and The Actor’s Company Theatre (TACT) has done a special service in giving it a powerful revival on the occasion of Inge’s birth year centennial. The new staging shows what the theater has been missing all these years. The play had the misfortune to open in the midst of a newspaper strike that prevented getting proper promotion, and the drama being far more volatile than typical Inge and well ahead of its time in dealing with its issues further complicated matters. This was even though its stalwart cast then included Kim Stanley and Harry Guardino and it was directed by Tony Richardson.
This new production, directed by Jenn Thompson, has a contemporary feeling even though it is faithfully set in 1962. The cast is up to the task as the characterizations unfold in the excellent apartment set, designed by John McDermott to make broad use of the stage, allowing for a bedroom, a living room and views of the bathroom, kitchen and the outside corridor with an apartment door across the hall.
Kathryn Erbe gives an award-caliber performance as Sue Barker, a woman who has achieved a position as a department store buyer with a painful past. She felt compelled to place her son in a home when left pregnant by a man who deserted her. She has tried hard to continue being a mother to her boy, but he got into trouble, including for a violent act, and was sentenced to a juvenile facility. Now the son, Donnie, is due for a Christmas visit, but he could be released from the facility if he stays with his mother for a year. Chris Bert is superb as the sullen young man, showing the pent-up anger for what life has dealt him, yet the desire to change course, and also the frustration he finds in the fresh situation with his mother.
Sue is living with Bernie Slovenk (dynamically played by Alec Beard), whom she wants to marry, but he doesn’t feel ready for marriage, partly because his macho status is threatened by making less money than Sue does, and to complicate matters, his work as a car salesman ends when he has an accident with one of the vehicles. Bernie feels like a loser, but still dreams of making it one day with his own car agency. The prospect of Donnie coming to live with them is a frightful intrusion that inevitably leads to conflicts between him and Bernie, as well as for Sue with respect to Donnie. Her desire to be a mother to him, make up for the past and see him progress conflicts with other emotional needs.
Bernie is irresponsible, having secret relations with Claire, a hot number next door played by Victoria Mack with intense sexuality, along with despair at the alcoholism of her husband Vince, given a riveting performance by John Pankow. Homosexual feelings enter in his affection for Bernie, a subject not commonly addressed at the time and reflective of Inge himself. Tobi Aremu and Eve Bianco round out the cast effectively with dual roles.
The potential for violence exists as an undercurrent, and Inge builds the drama to a shattering climax. In the course of the trajectory we are given incisive portraits that enable us to feel for the characters, especially the besieged, struggling and likable Sue as a woman whose lot Inge examines with perception. While "Natural Affection" is not Inge's greatest work, it is gratifying to see this unusual side Inge’s creativity that was buried for a half century.
wolf