{"id":3626,"date":"2011-10-10T19:00:13","date_gmt":"2011-10-11T02:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bostonartsdiary.com\/wordpress\/?p=3626"},"modified":"2011-11-29T20:36:35","modified_gmt":"2011-11-30T03:36:35","slug":"collected-stories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bostonartsdiary.com\/wordpress\/2011\/10\/collected-stories\/","title":{"rendered":"Collected Stories"},"content":{"rendered":"

Play (1996)
\nby Donald Margulies<\/p>\n

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

Directed by Bridget Kathleen O\u2019Leary<\/p>\n

With Bobbie Steinbach (Ruth Steiner), Liz Hayes (Lisa Morrison)<\/p>\n

October 9 – 30, 2011 <\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Bobbie<\/a>
Bobbie Steinbach as Ruth Steiner
Photo by Andrew Brilliant\/ Brilliant Pictures<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
A play about two women writers, initially mentor and student, and the issue of propriety and ownership of subject-matter, featuring the irrepressible Bobbie Steinbach as the mentor.<\/strong><\/div>\n

Ruth Steiner is an older, accomplished and well-known writer. Lisa Morrison, an aspiring writer in her twenties, is, at the outset, her star-struck student. Over the course of the play, several years pass and the fortunes of the younger writer change; and, as she develops and gains recognition, the nature of her relationship with the mentor changes. In the denouement, a work by the younger writer raises questions about standards for appropriate thematic inspiration as influenced by the intimacies of the mentor-apprentice relationship.<\/p>\n

This two person play stars the irrepressible Bobbie Steinbach, an amazing powerhouse of an actor who I have seen many times in productions by the Actors’ Shakespeare Project, and occasionally in other venues, notably as Madame Armfeldt in the Lyric Stage’s great production of Stephen Sondheim’s A Little Night Music<\/em> in 2004. Her comedic talents run deep and her capacity, as well, to convey complex and nuanced roles is evident from her range of work; she is a wonderful, supremely versatile actress and brings considerable gusto and panache to the productions in which she participates.<\/p>\n

Here she plays Ruth Steiner, the aging Jewish writer, and she brings to the part an honest energy and hilarious bluntness. There are, especially in the first act, many occasions on which her dealings (including considerable grandstanding and railing) with her student, Lisa (Liz Hayes), generate significant laughter. She (and the director and author) are to be commended for conveying, without a sense of forcing the issue, a kind of honest humor in the authentic give and take these early scenes exhibit. Her talk about the business of writing, and, in particular, her comments on Lisa’s writing, are fabulous nuggets of insight and levity. The play does a decent job of creating an atmosphere in this opening sequence; and this production, particularly and usefully, capitalizes on that strength.<\/p>\n

\"Donald<\/a>
Donald Margulies, playwright<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The writing, in the second act, does a less satisfying job, not really bringing to the surface the significant issues that the first act raises. <\/p>\n

This play has all the potential features of an intimate and muted comedic drama, and a very good chamber piece. Instead, Margulies has tried to turn it into high drama; and there simply is not enough material here to muster that kind of dramatic force. <\/p>\n

What should have been, in the second act’s denoument, a mature instruction by Ruth to Liz’s choice of subject-matter, turns into an impassioned rant; it just does not fit. A good mentor would point out the error of taking another’s subject for one’s own and lead the way, wisely and with caring. Here, the author, seeking dramatic catharsis rather than realism, does a disservice to the role by making it excessively vain, and unnecessarily and not quite believably, vulnerable. <\/p>\n

\"Liz<\/a>
Liz Hayes as Lisa Morrison
Photo by Andrew Brilliant\/ Brilliant Pictures<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Liz Hayes does a decent job of creating the trajectory of the young, starstruck student through the stages of literary maturity. However, given the limitations of the material with which she has to work, it is not clear what she could have done to communicate an intention towards thematic plundering threatening enough to merit the kind of response that Ruth exhibits. It would, I suspect, take an enormous effort of acting to fill that hole in this particular tale.<\/p>\n

\"Art<\/a>
Poster for the documentary film Art and Copy<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Apparently, Margulies was inspired to write this play by an actual recent conflict (1994) between the writers David Leavitt and Stephen Spender. Leavitt had written parts of his novel While England Sleeps<\/em> based on parts of Spender’s autobiography without giving explicit enough credit to its source; Spender took great umbrage at this. <\/p>\n

\"David<\/a>
David Leavitt<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Unfortunately, Collected Stories<\/em> does not really make its cases convincingky. Liz argues that she writes (in this case, about Ruth’s involvement with Delmore Schwartz) out of vicarious admiration. Ruth feels that Liz is absconding with her life unfairly. This argument about literary inspiration is a reasonable one, but it simply does not get played out adequately in this play. Clearly, there is nothing wrong with writing about someone else’s life – writers do it all the time. The problem is a psychological one – that vicarious writing does not answer one of the hard problems of artistic development – how to find one’s own source of inspiration. A satisfyng denoument would have shown how a great writer and teacher would lead a younger writer towards that end. Alternatively, this play seeks a quicker route to dramatic focus and the result is not real drama but melodrama.<\/p>\n

\"Stephen<\/a>
Stephen Spender<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But, again, these are shortcomings in the writing, not in the production per se. <\/p>\n

Perhaps it is an intentional piece of irony, but, given the thrust of the play, employing the actual poet Delmore Schwartz so significantly in Ruth Steiner’s past seems an odd choice. <\/p>\n

The set, by the way, is beautiful – it artfully and warmly conveys the sense of a writer’s New York apartment.<\/p>\n

The Writer’s Rights<\/em><\/a>, excerpts from an article by Donald Margulies.
\nMy Life Is Mine: It Is Not David Leavitt’s<\/em><\/a> by Stephen Spender
\nDid I plagiarize his life?<\/em><\/a> by David Leavitt<\/strong><\/div>\n

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

Play (1996) by Donald Margulies New Repertory Theatre Arsenal Center for the Arts Watertown, MA Directed by Bridget Kathleen O\u2019Leary With Bobbie Steinbach (Ruth Steiner), Liz Hayes (Lisa Morrison) October 9 – 30, 2011 A play about two women writers, initially mentor and student, and the issue of propriety and ownership of subject-matter, featuring the […]<\/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-3626","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\/3626","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=3626"}],"version-history":[{"count":69,"href":"https:\/\/bostonartsdiary.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3626\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4742,"href":"https:\/\/bostonartsdiary.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3626\/revisions\/4742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bostonartsdiary.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bostonartsdiary.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bostonartsdiary.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}