168. REGULAR SINGING
There are few theatergoing pleasures in
the Big Apple like sitting through the plays in Richard Nelson’s series, The Apple
Family: Scenes from Life in the Country. The final installment in the four-play
series, REGULAR SINGING, is now playing at the Public Theatre’s Anspacher
Theatre in repertory with the earlier entries, THAT HOPEY CHANGEY THING, set on
midterm election night, 2010; SWEET AND SAD, set on the 10th anniversary of
9/11; SORRY, set on election night 2012; and REGULAR SINGING, set on the 50th
anniversary of JFK’s assassination. In each of these plays, the Apple family of
Rhinebeck, New York, come together to deal with some issue and, as families do,
drift conversationally from one subject to another while also now and then
commenting on the current political situation. The Apples are liberals with an
aversion to the term “progressives,” but even if you don’t agree with their
politics, being in their intelligent but never aggressively argumentative
company is worth the trip.
From left: Laila Robins, Sally Murphy, Maryann Plunkett. Photo: Joan Marcus.
Prior
to seeing REGULAR SINGING, I’d seen only SORRY (twice), and will catch up with
the other two soon, but from what I’ve read I expect they will be in the same
vein. In the elegiac REGULAR SINGING, the occasion that draws the family to the Rhinebeck
homestead late at night on November 22, 2013, is the imminent death from cancer
of Marian Apple’s (Laila Robins) former husband, Adam (not seen), who is being
taken care of here by his ex-wife and her sister, Barbara (Maryann Plunkett), a
high school English teacher. Death, in fact, becomes the subtle through line of the play. Present as well are Barbara and Marian’s brother,
Richard Apple (Jay O. Sanders), a successful lawyer who works for Gov. Cuomo, lives
in Albany, and is in the process of a divorce from his wife, Pamela; another
sister, Jane Apple (Sally Murphy), is a nonfiction writer who lives locally
with her actor boyfriend, Tim Andrews (Stephen Kunken), who waits on tables at
a Rhinebeck restaurant; and there is the gentle old Uncle Benjamin Apple (Jon
DeVries), a formerly well-known actor who suffered amnesia after a heart attack
and had to move into assisted living.
Everybody is very
well-read and the evening is essentially an ongoing conversation in which each
character tells one or more stories, either anecdotes from their personal
experience or a recounting (or reading) of something they’ve found in a book,
but always during the flow of normal-seeming talk; something someone says
sparks a new line of talk, or a pause in the conversation forces someone to
fill in the blank space. We learn about the Rhinecliff train station’s
connection to Lincoln’s funeral train, as well as other historical facts about
the area. There is talk about the reality of acting, about “speech acts” by
which what one says can be considered a physical activity, about Samuel Beckett’s
directing of KRAPP’S LAST TAPE, about Scheherazade and the Arabian Nights, about how “Washington Crossing the Delaware” came
to be painted, about the permanence of Facebook postings, about how people cope with
disabilities, about the process of evaluating the financial value of a life, and
so on. The mentioning of the news and names
of the day easily catches our ears; it would seem that the writing continued
right up to the time of the opening as there were references to events in
Dallas on November 22. We hear the names not only of the current governor of
New York (Richard’s job allows him to throw soft barbs at “Andrew”), but references
to Bill de Blasio, Kirsten Gillibrand, and Obamacare.
Most of the chatter
has no specific plot-driven purpose, although it is often interrupted by
personal discussions, such as the sisters’ concern for Richard’s living alone
in Albany and their wish for him to come live with them in Rhinebeck. Barbara’s
work as a teacher inspires a segment where she reads student comments on the
meaning of death, with comments from her family. Barbara also offers a close
parsing of Tom Wicker’s New York Times
essay on Kennedy’s killing. There is considerable converse about
preparations for Adam’s funeral, with some beautiful singing of the hymns (with
religious references removed) planned for the occasion. Laughs and tears are
shared, no one quarrels angrily, even when they disagree, and a sense of family love,
caring, and respect touches all that these people say and do.
Much less than
in the plays of Chekhov, which are clearly Mr. Nelson’s inspiration, does
anything dramatic happen. Thus the play, which runs an intermissionless 90
minutes, could probably be shortened by at least 10 minutes, as even listening
to the Apple family can eventually lose some steam. Happily, the ensemble
performing REGULAR SINGING, which also appears, more or less, in the other
Apple plays, is one of the finest on the New York stage, and previously has
been awarded for its artistic excellence. Stephen Kunken and Sally Murphy are
new (replacing Shuler Hensley and J. Smith Cameron) but the others have been with the plays from the start. Under the
playwright’s direction, we get three-dimensional characterizations and witness
people who actually seem to be talking to and listening to one another; the
performances have that overheard, naturalistic quality we associate with the best TV and film
acting, where we become intimate with the people on the screen in a way that
the theatre, because of its need for size and scope and projection, often
loses. Rather than selecting any single actor for commendation, I prefer to
applaud the company for its nearly seamless unity.
As with the
other plays, the minimalist set is simply a couple of old Persian carpets, a dining room
table, and chairs. The audience sits on three sides of the space and the
lighting sensitively captures the quiet warmth of a family gathering. As the
play progresses, scenes fade out and restart several minutes later, the
transitions suggested by casting low intensity lighting on areas of the
audience itself before the stage lights come up again. The actors themselves
take off and bring on props as needed, just as they’d do if they were at home.
If what you seek
in the theatre is strong dramatic action, surprising revelations, fiery
confrontations, and pointedly polemical ideas, this will not be what you’re
after. But if you want an evening with some nice folks, the kind you might
already know, who won’t challenge you but through whose ordinary lives you may
learn something of what being part of a cohesive and loving family means,
REGULAR SINGING may be the music you wish to hear.
