"The Two of You"

Theatre review
"The Two of You" at the Kitchen Theatre
Ithaca Times
August 27, 2008
728 words
"Double Time"

full text here

Double Time
By: Mark Tedeschi
08/27/2008

"The Two of You" by Brian Dykstra, directed by Margaret Perry. Starring Matthew Boston, Heather Frase, Nance Williamson. With scenic designer Brian Prather, lighting designer E.D. Intemann, costume designer Hannah Kochman, sound designer Don Tindall, and stage manager Preeti Nath.

The Kitchen Theatre's new season has begun, and they're not wasting any time. Their premiere show, "The Two of You" - written by Kitchen staple Brian Dykstra - is, start to finish, a challenge. The devices Dykstra has applied juggle with convention and confront the audience, literally, with their implications.

The fundamental plot element in "The Two of You" concerns the emotional concomitants of a married couple's visit by a young woman claiming to be the husband's daughter.

Brian Prather's scenic design sets the space: a modern, expensive-looking apartment with a granite bar, shelves of reference books, and a background Hockney-esque photo collage of a Boston skyline. After the first scene wherein Hank (Matthew Boston), a respected academic, and his wife Parker (Nance Williamson), a politician, discuss their evening plans, Parker exits to get ready and Hank places a telephone call. Midway through the call he stops talking, looks straight into the audience, and waves. "Hello, hi, hello. As you can see, this is one of those plays," he says, swinging a wrecking ball at wall number four.

He launches into an explanation of the preceding scene, which he says wasn't in the original draft - it was rather a workshop suggestion. His elucidation - the first of many - sounds beautifully as if it's been made up on the spot, and evokes Dykstra's own penchant for verbose yet fluid jungle-gym passages of language.

The action resumes. 21-year-old January Aloha Ireland (Heather Frase) shows up unannounced and eventually reveals what Hank had probably assumed: that she was the hitherto undisclosed product of a previous, ancient-history relationship. He turns to the audience again to explain why he should have asked January to postpone the meeting before his wife returned, and January, to his disbelief, chimes in. He blurts, "You can't do that!" and she counters, "Why not? You established a convention."

When Parker does discover what's happening, she immediately becomes combative, and to us, defensive of her behavior. Who is this girl, and what business does she have intruding into their lives, daughter or no?

The characters continue walking the tightrope of direct audience address, often accompanied by lighting changes (E.D. Intemann, designer) until their arguments about the "rules" become a welcome method for plot advancement. As Dykstra has pointed out in an interview with the Kitchen staff, the characters are aware they're in a play, but "they have no issue with 'reality'" as those in, for example, Luigi Pirandello's "Six Characters in Search of an Author." "The Two of You" is instead about the inherent psychology of relationships: young and old, male and female, husband and wife, father and daughter.

Dykstra's dissection of a strange, new emotional bond stirred enough vigorous debate in the Lark Play Development Center workshop that he felt the characters needed to foreground their reasoning, and under Margarett Perry's brave direction, the characters' instincts feel credible.

On the tip of their toes and at the top of their game, the three actors give outstanding attention to the unorthodox style. Boston sidesteps and "lobbies" for sympathy from the audience ("a group of oddly accessible strangers"), and Williamson bounces between intimidation and adaptation. Frase clasps her hands and gives believably awkward responses to the on-eggshells conflict.

Art that candidly addresses itself solicits intense scrutiny; naturally, the unfamiliar format of "The Two of You" is not without a few concerns. Something especially unconventional happens in the second act, to which Hank reacts with the claim, "There's no model for this!" It's obvious that Dykstra's intention wasn't to brag that he's the first to try something new, but that possibility is inexorably attached to such a line. The frequent mentions of workshop suggestions could indicate a frustration mitigated by an easy fix (explaining his purpose directly), and January's insistence on having no agenda could be construed as an excuse for overlooking dramatic potential.

But Dykstra's aggressive, confronting (and often comedic) use of these devices beside thespian terms like "stasis," "mitigating," and "dramaturgically" is at once their saving grace; in any other case, they'd sound like the words of a playwright a bit too proud of his theatrical know-how. Instead, Dykstra refuses timidity; he takes his idea and plows over protocol. Studying the mercurial nature of human emotion, in this play, takes precedence over standardization. See "The Two of You" with a friend and you'll be talking about it for a long time.


©Ithaca Times 2008