120.
I SEE YOU
It’s often said about the
art of stage directing that it works best when most concealed. Of course, this
isn’t always true; some directors, like Julie Taymor, for example, are known
for their conceptual brilliance and audiences often go to see something more because
of a particular director’s take on it than for the work itself. But, for the
most part, especially in realistic plays, directors best serve their work by
not drawing attention to themselves. This, I’m afraid, isn’t the case with Jim
Simpson’s staging of Kate Robin’s I SEE YOU, at the Flea Theater, where Mr.
Simpson has made this one-act, 90-minute, two-character “romcom,” as it’s being
called, into a showcase for directorial ingenuity.
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| Danielle Slavick, Stephen Barker Turner. Photo: Hunter Canning. |
Until her character’s
loquaciousness grows annoying, Ms. Slavick creates an amusingly quirky picture
of Nina as a self-involved New York mom, obsessively preoccupied with all the currently
trendy issues related to the ecology, nutrition, poultry raising, depression, Botox,
child raising, wireless radiation, shellfish allergies, corporate greed, religion,
and, among other little things, the future of the human race. Of course, Nina doesn’t
fail to vent about the modern world’s immersion in social media to the
exclusion of human contact, and there’s a bit too much would-be humor at the expense
of gluten, another overused satirical target. A lot of this is interesting, of
course, like reading a digest version of the Science Times, but you sometimes want to ask, “Hey, folks, is
this a conversation or a play?”
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| Danielle Slavick, Stephen Barker Turner. Photo: Hunter Canning. |
Nina’s chatter goes on
and on and gradually chips away at Jesse’s reserve (he’s always looking at his
phone), until he starts to respond with his own takes on her nonstop
commentary. Why she chooses him as the recipient of her accumulated wisdom, and
why he finds himself drawn to her are questions I can’t answer, but, pretty as
Ms. Slavick is, Nina’s someone I’d probably find myself running from, not
toward.
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| Danielle Slavick. Photo: Hunter Canning. |
The writing and
performances are realistic, the structure is episodic, and the locales—the
museum, a hospital’s ICU ward, Nina’s home, the meditation center, Jesse’s
home, and a room where one takes kids to engage with wall projections—are unexceptional
(except, perhaps, the last). For its performance, Kyle Chepulis has designed an
open space backed by translucent curtains, with a long wooden bench placed on
an off-white floor into which is built a motorized revolve. Bare stage, background curtains, bench, two actors: add connective mood music, cool clothes (by Claudia Brown), and smart lighting (by Brian Aldous) and what more do you need?
Do you really need two
attractive young men (John Paul Harkins and Alexander Kushi-Willis) dressed in black with cowl neck sweaters to be
choreographed into the action, where they’re frequently quite visible, to hand
the actors their props, like kurogo in
a kabuki play? Must they carry little
black boxes that light up to spell out the locale of the following scene? Does
the accompanying piano music (Janie Bullard is the sound designer) have to be so
overwhelmingly portentous? Do we have to watch the actors sitting endlessly in
place, bathed in atmospheric light, before the action begins? Does the blackout
scene, played only in candlelight so that we can barely see the actors’ faces,
have to go on so long that we’re tempted to sneak in a nap before the lights
return? And is an expensive revolve for a sceneryless set absolutely necessary?
Ms. Robin’s play has a
scene in a hospital’s Intensive Care Unit, where Jesse’s child is rushed after
having an allergic reaction to eating shrimp. Perhaps that scene inspired
director Simpson to believe I SEE YOU needed an ICU of his own. Or perhaps not.
The Flea Theater
41 White Street
Through December 21