157. SELF
Page Clements. Photo: Leonardo Mascaro.
A visit to the tiny Metropolitan
Playhouse on E. 4th Street is always an educational experience. The company’s
dedication to reviving long-forgotten plays from America’s past, while done on
a dime, offers useful lessons not only in the theatre of years gone by,
especially before the 20th century, and gives living expression to the morals
and issues that stirred old-time playwrights to put pen to paper. Even in
productions that must make do with minimal sets and props, and with actors of
varying ability, this company provides a fair idea of what our forebears
experienced at the theatre in those days of long ago. It’s not likely any other
local company would revive a play like SELF: AN ORIGINAL COMEDY, an 1856 comedy
of manners by Mrs. Sidney Frances Bateman (1823-1881), who enjoyed a successful
stage career both in America and England, so hats are off to the Metropolitan
for allowing us the chance to see it.
SELF
betrays many of the melodramatic excesses of its day, with florid language,
stereotypical characters, endless expository monologues and asides,
mechanically contrived situations, and moralistic browbeating. Thankfully,
however, even with its obvious manipulations, it has moments and ideas of continued
interest and relevance. Still, in what seems to be an uncut version that runs 2
hours and 45 minutes, it is far too overblown to sit through comfortably; aside
from a few exceptions, its actors are at sea in trying to invest their
verbose and overwritten roles with any sense of reality, forcing them to rely
on artificial gestures and facial expressions to cover their inadequacies.
Drew Ledbetter and Page Clements. Photo: Joseph Sinnott.
SELF
is determined to instruct its audience about the dangers of debt, which it sees
as the result of a national obsession with conspicuous consumption. Its lessons,
as pertinent today as they were over a century and a half ago, are couched in a
play that shows us a wealthy businessman, George Apex (Doug Farrell), whose
second wife, Clemanthe Apex (Page Clements), not only has a nasty shopping
habit but is the mother by a previous marriage to Charles (Drew Ledbetter), a
reckless gambler who looks down on those who work for a living. Apex, for all
his seeming wealth, is actually on the verge of bankruptcy, but his beautiful,
angelic daughter, Mary (Erica Knight), willingly agrees to save him by signing
over to him the entirety of a $15,000 legacy she's inherited from an aunt. However, unaware
of this, the selfish Mrs. Apex convinces the at first hesitant Charles to forge Mary's name to
a check to pay off their own debts. Showing a glint of decency, Charles says he’ll
give up gambling and get a job as a clerk. His pretentious mother says this “will
break my heart!" “Better be a working man than a thief,” Charles replies, only
to give the idea up when his mother convinces him that the forgery is no such
thing, but merely a temporary “borrowing,” which she says she’ll
pay back in a few days. However, when Mr. Apex learns from the bank that the
money is no longer, he blames Mary—who has promised Mrs. Apex not to reveal the
truth—for reneging on her promise, and he tosses her and her faithful black nurse
(Mary calls her “Mammy”), Chloe (Marie Louise Guinier), out into a life of
penury. “Out of my sight, viper that you are!” rants Apex to his daughter. But
all is not lost, since Mary’s loving and wealthy, if crabbily upright godfather,
John Unit (Howard Thoresen), comes to the rescue. Almost every sentence of this
60-year-old misogynist (except where Mary is concerned)
weighs things in terms of whether they “pay” or not; when the nefarious doings
of Mrs. Apex and her son are exposed, Mr. Unit spreads forgiveness around like
marmalade and finds a suitable, if private, punishment for the wrongdoers.
Surrounding these central characters is a group of comedic gossips who provide
commentary on the goings on, and get their own comeuppances as well.
SELF
teaches us, among other things, that work is virtuous and gambling ruinous; that
mindless consumption and vanity is wicked; that frugality is essential and debt
is horrible; and that self-interest plays a part in all we do, even when we act
charitably toward others, but reminds us that we should act selflessly whenever
possible. Even old Unit, with his insistence that the only things of value are
those that pay, discovers that “love, respect, and sympathy are the only things
that pay.” SELF, written four years after UNCLE TOM’S CABIN, also teaches
racial tolerance. The black nurse Chloe, despite her dialect-laden lines, is
actually written as a human being with strong moral standards that are
recognized and appreciated by the others in the play; such roles were rare in
mid-19th-century theatre, a time when blacks were played by white
actors in blackface in stereotypically clownish ways. As someone says in SELF,
Chloe is one more proof that “outward covering is not to be depended on.”
Erica Knight and Marie Louise Guinier. Photo: Debby Goldman.
As often at the
Metropolitan, the various scenes (all of those in SELF being interiors) are all
played within the same basic environment, designed here by Aaron Sheckler; the
change of locales is indicated only by a change in furnishings. Scenery is
not the Metropolitan’s strong suit, but enough indications are provided to let
us know when we’ve moved from one place to another. On the other hand, the
Metropolitan normally provides visual interest in its costumes, and, considering the
low budget, Sidney Fortier must be strongly commended for the
attractive period clothing with which she’s dressed his cast, especially the
women. Women’s garments in the 1850s used great swathes of material and were
highly decorative, and the wide, hoop dresses on display here are truly
eye-catching. Kudos to the actresses for maneuvering them about the cramped
acting area without knocking anything over!
Under
Alex Roe’s direction, the tone mixes melodrama and satire in equal proportions,
Mr. Roe thoughtfully inserts ten period songs sung by a quartet of actors to cover
the scene changes. Of the actors, only Howard Thoresen as the crusty but kind
Mr. Unit is truly grounded and believable. Erica Knight is perfectly cast as
the selfless Mary, but she has a distracting tendency to scrunch her eyes as a
way of expressing both joy and sorrow. Drew Ledbetter makes a fairly effective
profligate as George, but Page Clements, acceptable when speaking, overacts when she has to express herself without words. The remaining cast members, especially Kyle Payne as a foppish parvenu, are simply out of their
element here.
