{"id":10920,"date":"2012-12-16T14:00:11","date_gmt":"2012-12-16T21:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bostonartsdiary.com\/wordpress\/?p=10920"},"modified":"2012-12-22T06:16:18","modified_gmt":"2012-12-22T13:16:18","slug":"chesapeake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bostonartsdiary.com\/wordpress\/2012\/12\/chesapeake\/","title":{"rendered":"Chesapeake"},"content":{"rendered":"

Play (1999)
\nby Lee Blessing<\/p>\n

Directed by Doug Lockwood<\/p>\n

New Repertory Theatre<\/a>
\nArsenal Center for the Arts
\nWatertown, MA<\/p>\n

November 25 – December 16, 2012<\/p>\n

With Georgia Lyman (Kerr)<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Chesapeake<\/a><\/p>\n

A solo acting tour de force in an inventive exploration of the social and psychological interactions between an avant-garde performance artist and a conservative legislator.<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

Kerr (Georgia Lyman) is a performance artist who has issues about Therm Pooley, a conservative legislator who opposes support for her kind of art. Through explorations of her dream life, and through further, more metaphysically adventurous, extensions of her personality, she probes her relationship to this policy and to this character.<\/p>\n

This imaginative play starts out with a political position and a premise – that a performance artist of a courageous bent who ran up against a hostile policy wall established by reactionary legislators would need to take up theatrical arms against it. From that starting point this play goes off into wild and unexpected dimensions, exploring the interpersonal ramifications of the combative relationships involved, and the unforeseen degree of psychic intimacy that gets generated by the conflict. <\/p>\n

\"Georgia<\/a>
Georgia Lyman as Kerr
in “Chesapeake”
Photo:Christopher McKenzie Photography
Courtesy New Repertory Theatre<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In addition to Kerr, played evocatively with virtuoso inventiveness by Georgia Lyman, the characters involved are Therm Pooley, his assistant, his wife and his dog. Lyman embodies all of them beautifully, giving them distinctive voices, stances and outlooks. <\/p>\n

Lyman and the director, Doug Lockwood, have created a wonderfully entertaining performance with minimal props and settings. A few lighting and sound effects supplement the action which Lyman creates single-handedly with imaginative gusto. <\/p>\n

The play itself is a beautifully wrought improvisation that starts with the politics of art and ends in a transcendence of politics via artistic imagination. It is difficult to say more than that without giving away crucial elements of the plot, but suffice it to say that Kerr’s personality and identity adapt in a way that brings her closer to the object of her derision.<\/p>\n

Lyman is really brilliant in this role – it is a tour de force for her. And she and Lockwood together have devised a fabulously interesting entertainment based on Blessing’s ingeniously wrought template.<\/p>\n

– BADMan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Play (1999)
\nby Lee Blessing<\/p>\n

Directed by Doug Lockwood
\nWith Georgia Lyman
\nNew Repertory Theatre<\/a>
\nArsenal Center for the Arts
\nWatertown, MA
\nNovember 25 – December 16, 2012<\/strong>
\nA solo acting tour de force in an inventive exploration of the social and psychological interactions between an avant-garde performance artist and a conservative legislator.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-10920","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-plays","7":"entry","8":"has-post-thumbnail"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bostonartsdiary.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bostonartsdiary.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bostonartsdiary.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bostonartsdiary.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bostonartsdiary.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10920"}],"version-history":[{"count":30,"href":"https:\/\/bostonartsdiary.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10920\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11165,"href":"https:\/\/bostonartsdiary.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10920\/revisions\/11165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bostonartsdiary.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bostonartsdiary.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bostonartsdiary.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}