On the Verge

Play (1987)
by Eric Overmyer

With Benjamin Evett (Alphonse, Grover, et al.), Christine Hamel (Alex), Adrianne Krstansky (Fanny), Paula Langton (Mary)

I saw this play performed at the Huntington Theatre Company years ago and thought it was lightweight then. The current production at the New Rep did not do much to change that previously formed opinion.

Presumably, Overmyer got his inspiration for this play by reading the writings of Alexandra David-Neel (1868-1969), a British Victorian woman who traveled to Tibet. In fact, one of the three women featured in the play is named Alex (Christine Hamel). Having read some of David-Neel’s writing, I can say that Overmyer abstracted her vision and intent so far from what I perceived as its significance to really not do it justice.

David-Neel was indeed traveling into terra incognita, which the three women in this play recognize they are doing at the outset, but her journey had a spiritual motivation. In this play, there is a hint of that which develops towards the end, but the main part of the play is basically about these women traveling unexpectedly into the succeeding decades of the near future and encountering in imagination and experience commercial products that characterize those eras.

Fanny (Adrianne Krstansky) is theoretically based on Fanny Bullock Workman (1859-1925), an American explorer, cartographer and mountaineer, and Mary is inspired by Mary Kingsley (1862-1900), a British writer and explorer. The idea of honoring this remarkable trio of women adventurers is a great one, but the practical result is not so great. Why didn’t Overmyer imagine an encounter between these three that was more about what they actually were, rather than applying this far-fetched notion of time travel to them? The result is a not very satisfying substitute for what might have really been a comedic drama honoring these noble and courageous women from an era which did not encourage them much.

To spice up the waystations in the encountered decades, Overmyer has created a male figure – played energetically and entertainingly by Benjamin Evett – who shows up in various and sundry garbs and disguises. In all of his different forms, he is a kind of muse to the three women, introducing them to the particularities of each new cultural backwater.

The writing of the play wanders between triviality and monotony. There is a lot of humorous effort directed at hand egg-beaters, which, to the Victorian women seem like an emblem of what’s to come, and then much more like this along the way. Is it Cool Whip or Noxzema that they dip their fingers into and eat? This sort of gimmick, rather than the interesting story of Victorian women adventurers, becomes the hub of the play, and, three decades later it is even less funny than when it was first written and produced.

Miraculously, this early attempt of Overmyer’s got him attention in Hollywood and he went on to a significant career in film and television, becoming a writer for the immensely well-done HBO series, The Wire and the succeeding series about New Orleans, Treme. If Overmyer has the chops to help create important television of that sort, he has my attention and respect, though this early play of his, on its own merits, does not do it for me.

Despite the thinness of the material, On The Verge goes on and on – the performance lasts two and three quarter hours – and the three women are onstage together for most of it. Though the actresses who play the women are very capable – I have certainly seen Adrianne Krstansky and Paula Langton do excellent work previously – there just is not enough here for them to grasp onto.

The best part of the production is Benjamin Evett’s antics; he really gets to clown around in style. He is a versatile and most capable actor (he was also the founder of the Actors’ Shakespeare Project a decade ago), but here he gets to just really pull out the stops and ham it up; he’s great at it.

The set, which consists of several translucent panels that move around, is not very engaging, and the staging is generally monotonous. I don’t know what magic a director might employ to enliven this limited script, but no such sleight of hand appears to have done the trick here.

– BADMan