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| John Heard, Guy Boyd, Tom Lee Jones, Kathryn Grody, Lindsay Crouse. |
FISHING [Comedy-Drama/Drugs/Friendship/Marriage/Rural/Suicide]
A: Michael Weller; D: Peter Gill; S/C: Pat Woodbridge; L: Ian Calderon; P: New
York Shakespeare Festival; T: Public Theater/Newman Theater (OB); 2/1/75-3/9/75
(44)
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| John Heard, Tom Lee Jones. |
Michael Weller’s first play after his hit Moonchildren met with something less
than the critical acclaim of its predecessor. One reason was that its
characters seemed too much like those of the earlier play, albeit about eight
years older.
Fishing
takes
place in a rustic Oregon cabin where the gruff bill (Tom[my] Lee Jones) and Shelly
(Lindsay Crouse) live with their wealthy, suicidal friend Robbie (Guy Boyd),
who loves Shelly. The men dream of buying a boat and going into business as
deep-sea fishermen. A married couple, Mary-Ellen (Kathryn Grody) and Dane (John
Heard), an architect, arrives to spend the weekend. The five friends and former
roommates pass the time by taking peyote and getting involved in far-out
conversations and weird carryings-on.
Ultimately, the weekend concludes, the feckless Robbie
(who has tried to kill himself) remains with Bill and Shelly and gives Bill
money for his boat—though he wishes he could move on and make something of his
life—and Mary-Ellen and Dana depart.
The thinly plotted work was concerned more than with
its story, being focused on its characters and their meandering search for life’s meaning.
It succeeded, for the most part, in presenting each individual with insight and
humanity. Clive Barnes said, “You get to know the people and they are
interesting.” Weller’s gift for dialogue rarely failed him, nor did his ability
to write laugh-getting lines.
The blend of pathos and humor spurred John Simon to
call Fishing “a play of texture,”
with an accurate view of the lives it pictured, but Simon was a bit put off by
an overly clever streak he spotted in the language. Edith Oliver thought the
characters convincing, but wished she could find their behavior “more
interesting . . . and . . . more contagious.” Comparing the work with Moonchildren, Walter Kerr said, “the
little jokes are littler now, the antic urge to con the world gone flat.”
British director Peter Gill’s first New York
assignment was well handled, and each actor (in a cast that also included
Edward Seamon and Raymond J. Barry) received respectable notices.