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What is it with women playwrights? Or,
When good productions happen to bad scripts
'Psalms of a Questionable Nature' at Studio 5
Jim Rutter
Can you make a great production from a lackluster or even bad script? It happens too often in a talent-rich theater community like Philadelphia. The Walnut’s recent production of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s hackneyed State Fair is one example. Nice People Theatre Company’s current staging of Marisa Wegrzyn’s Psalms of a Questionable Nature is another.
Psalms concerns 90 real-time minutes in the life of step-sisters Greta (Janice Rowland) and Moo (Rachael Joffred), who meet for the first time in the basement of their parents’ house, which they must now clean up and sell after their parents died in a horrifying drunk driving accident.
And that’s about it. Like Arthur Miller’s The Price— which begins from a similar premise of estranged siblings executing a will— the remainder of Psalms uncovers a litany of family secrets and, from a tormented past, asks two sisters to discover a foundation for their future relationship.
The audience groaned in unison
Give Wegrzyn points for quirkiness, at least. As the play unfolds, we learn (but don’t see) that Moo is a pro-euthanasia pyromaniac who used to work after-school in a slaughterhouse with her father, and Greta is a news anchor who spent time in prison (sound familiar?) for abusing her own daughter. As for mom and dad: When Moo wasn’t watching them have sex in dad’s basement laboratory, the pair was cooking up non-venereal diseases to mail out like anthrax letters to their ex-lovers.
But Wegrzyn clutters the mystery of how the parents actually died (a Nancy Drew book even serves as the key prop) by throwing in such distractions as self-mutilation, smoking, manic-depression, menopause and even a young girl’s fears after having her first period. The dialogue meanders, information appears haphazardly, and Wegrzyn fails to develop what’s actually interesting (like Moo’s weirdly romanticized version of her parents’ death).
I hated the depressing characters of The Price, but at least Arthur Miller stayed on target. Wegrzyn, by contrast, needs medication for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. I shared in the audience’s collective groan (as well as the near-unison squeaking of chairs) when we all realized, at the start of yet one more rambling anecdote, that “this ain’t over yet.”
Two actresses worth seeing
Nevertheless, the performances held my attention. And with a good script, Joffred and Rowland would have kept me spellbound. Wegrzyn’s play gives these women no arc except the one they so admirably create for their characters— particularly Rowland, who completely convinces with an “unrelenting stoic” shell that in private moments collapses inward on a painfully fragile interior. As for Joffred's Philadelphia debut, Philadelphia casting directors need to get over to Studio 5 and see the dizzying emotional acrobatics of which she’s capable. Though Wegrzyn’s script paints her character as a rambling idiot, Joffred’s frightfully intense performance held my interest in the unfolding mystery. I can still hear her desperate pleading voice in my head.
Between them, Rowland and Joffred almost make Wegrzyn’s summation—we are horrible people who come from horrible parents—credible.
Caitlin Lainoff’s creepy and extremely realistic set and props included live mice, and Shelley Hicklin’s lighting broke from the realism at just the right moment (which I can’t spoil). Pirronne Yousefzadeh’s otherwise tight direction can be faulted only for starting the tension too high, since the script doesn’t provide an anchor for such deeply felt emotion from two step-sisters who never met.
Male playwrights vs. female
A recent article in the New York Times asked why there’s currently such a huge disparity (4 to 1 ratio) between the number of plays on Broadway written by men and those by women. Women’s plays often do not resolve as conclusively as those by men, suggested playwright Gina Gionfriddo, “and they don’t follow the Aristotelian model of drama, which makes directors uncomfortable."
If she means scripts that lack a plot or, worse, follow the touch-on-every-seemingly-related-topic “logic” of most arguments I’ve had with my ex-girlfriends, then, yes, that would make the overwhelming number of male artistic directors skittish about producing them. (To be sure, I loved how a woman— Blanka Zizka— recently made far more sense of the disjointed narrative written by Tom Stoppard in the Wilma’s recent production of Rock n’ Roll.)
Personally, I don’t care if Nice People lock chimpanzees in a room to type their next show. I just want to see good theater— which usually means a great production of a solid script. But if I must settle for only half of that, I’ll take it— and have two female performers to thank for my enjoyment.
To read responses, click here.
Psalms concerns 90 real-time minutes in the life of step-sisters Greta (Janice Rowland) and Moo (Rachael Joffred), who meet for the first time in the basement of their parents’ house, which they must now clean up and sell after their parents died in a horrifying drunk driving accident.
And that’s about it. Like Arthur Miller’s The Price— which begins from a similar premise of estranged siblings executing a will— the remainder of Psalms uncovers a litany of family secrets and, from a tormented past, asks two sisters to discover a foundation for their future relationship.
The audience groaned in unison
Give Wegrzyn points for quirkiness, at least. As the play unfolds, we learn (but don’t see) that Moo is a pro-euthanasia pyromaniac who used to work after-school in a slaughterhouse with her father, and Greta is a news anchor who spent time in prison (sound familiar?) for abusing her own daughter. As for mom and dad: When Moo wasn’t watching them have sex in dad’s basement laboratory, the pair was cooking up non-venereal diseases to mail out like anthrax letters to their ex-lovers.
But Wegrzyn clutters the mystery of how the parents actually died (a Nancy Drew book even serves as the key prop) by throwing in such distractions as self-mutilation, smoking, manic-depression, menopause and even a young girl’s fears after having her first period. The dialogue meanders, information appears haphazardly, and Wegrzyn fails to develop what’s actually interesting (like Moo’s weirdly romanticized version of her parents’ death).
I hated the depressing characters of The Price, but at least Arthur Miller stayed on target. Wegrzyn, by contrast, needs medication for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. I shared in the audience’s collective groan (as well as the near-unison squeaking of chairs) when we all realized, at the start of yet one more rambling anecdote, that “this ain’t over yet.”
Two actresses worth seeing
Nevertheless, the performances held my attention. And with a good script, Joffred and Rowland would have kept me spellbound. Wegrzyn’s play gives these women no arc except the one they so admirably create for their characters— particularly Rowland, who completely convinces with an “unrelenting stoic” shell that in private moments collapses inward on a painfully fragile interior. As for Joffred's Philadelphia debut, Philadelphia casting directors need to get over to Studio 5 and see the dizzying emotional acrobatics of which she’s capable. Though Wegrzyn’s script paints her character as a rambling idiot, Joffred’s frightfully intense performance held my interest in the unfolding mystery. I can still hear her desperate pleading voice in my head.
Between them, Rowland and Joffred almost make Wegrzyn’s summation—we are horrible people who come from horrible parents—credible.
Caitlin Lainoff’s creepy and extremely realistic set and props included live mice, and Shelley Hicklin’s lighting broke from the realism at just the right moment (which I can’t spoil). Pirronne Yousefzadeh’s otherwise tight direction can be faulted only for starting the tension too high, since the script doesn’t provide an anchor for such deeply felt emotion from two step-sisters who never met.
Male playwrights vs. female
A recent article in the New York Times asked why there’s currently such a huge disparity (4 to 1 ratio) between the number of plays on Broadway written by men and those by women. Women’s plays often do not resolve as conclusively as those by men, suggested playwright Gina Gionfriddo, “and they don’t follow the Aristotelian model of drama, which makes directors uncomfortable."
If she means scripts that lack a plot or, worse, follow the touch-on-every-seemingly-related-topic “logic” of most arguments I’ve had with my ex-girlfriends, then, yes, that would make the overwhelming number of male artistic directors skittish about producing them. (To be sure, I loved how a woman— Blanka Zizka— recently made far more sense of the disjointed narrative written by Tom Stoppard in the Wilma’s recent production of Rock n’ Roll.)
Personally, I don’t care if Nice People lock chimpanzees in a room to type their next show. I just want to see good theater— which usually means a great production of a solid script. But if I must settle for only half of that, I’ll take it— and have two female performers to thank for my enjoyment.
To read responses, click here.
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