212.
THE CLEARING
There’s
one surprise about three-quarters of the way through Jake Jeppson’s THE
CLEARING, being given its world premiere at the Theatre at St. Clements, but
for the most part the hour and 40-minute, intermissionless play is a conventional
exercise that sets up a situation designed to keep us interested until a big
secret is revealed. Plays built around
the ultimate revelations of secrets are common, of course, but the mystery
here, for all its potential shock value, proves to be mundane and predictable;
moreover, after it’s revealed, the play slogs along until another horrible but
equally predictable event occurs. And neither of these moments is the
production’s big surprise.
From left: Gene Gallerano, Brian McManamon, Brian P. Murphy. Photo: Gertjan Houben.
Les (Brian McManamon) and Chris
Ellis (Brian P. Murphy) are brothers in their late 20s, Chris being the older
one. Les is gay and has a handsome, kind, and caring lover, Peter Reisner (Gene
Gallerano), a photographer. Chris, who recently broke up with his girlfriend,
has psychological problems (he says he suffers from "arrested development"); he also makes homophobic remarks to Les that may be
cover-ups for his own sexual issues. He and Les have been sharing a secret
regarding someone called Daniel for 18 years. The brothers, neither of whose
professions is mentioned, live at home with their mother, Ella (Allison
Daugherty), an attractive, religiously pious woman; she's a good mother but is depressed because her husband disappeared
years earlier. Les and Chris have a
favorite place they call the clearing, atop a local mountain. 
The play begins with a rather
ambiguous prologue by Peter about the biblical Abraham’s having heard the voice
of God and thereafter realizing that he now was “someone specific. Not just
some bearded farmer guy.” Then, in a manner reminiscent of Pinter's BETRAYAL but without the same meaningful purpose, it moves backward to the previous day and then to scenes occurring over the past year. Once the action hits a day that happened a year earlier, the plot starts moving forward
again, bringing us back to where the play began. The script has a note from
the playwright suggesting that THE CLEARING could be done without the use of
projections to help the audience follow the chronology because of his belief
that the play doesn't require "those pronounced indicators of time.” I’m
not sure I agree, but director Josh Hecht, opting for clarity, uses another indicator of time, an amplified voice, to tell us when the scenes are taking place.
The
action maps the fragile but affectionate relationship between the troubled
Chris and his obnoxious brother, and those between Les and Peter, Ella and her sons, and
Peter and Ella. The characters are mostly laconic and the dialogue
dribbles along in brief sentences, forcing us to listen closely for information
about who these people are and how they feel about things. Patience is needed,
as it seems to take forever for the picture to come into focus and for
something interesting to occur. Chris eventually thinks he sees the ghost of
the aforementioned Daniel, but finding out who he is requires even more
patience because of the long-ago vow taken by the brothers to keep their
secret. Meanwhile, Ella becomes fond of Les’s boyfriend, Peter, and agrees to
let him photograph her at his studio. This is where the play’s biggest surprise
comes in, since Ella doffs all her clothes so she can be photographed in the nude;
she struggles so awkwardly to preserve her modesty, though, that it’s hard to
imagine any value the resulting photos might have. The scene may be something
of a breakthrough for the seemingly uptight Ella, but it's exploitative
and cringe-worthy. I’m not sure what it’s doing in the play at all.
The
action moves back and forth between the clearing and the Ellis home, but Daniel
Zimmerman’s set remains within the clearing; there's an upstage tree looking over
a gorge, and two halved-log benches that are moved about in different
arrangements to suggest both actual benches and tables and beds inside the
house. Leading from the stage to the auditorium is a small, graded hill, with a
path used for entrances and exits. No matter what the season, the autumnal
leaves on the tree never change, and the thick log benches convey little of
whatever else they’re asked to be.
Gertjan
Houben’s lighting does its best to create some visual variety on the simple
set, Tilly Grimes’s costumes suitably convey the personalities of the
characters, and Sam Kusnetz provides nicely atmospheric mood music to cover
scene transitions. These elements, however, are insufficient to overcome the
script’s inherent weaknesses, which would require uniformly excellent
performances from the ensemble. Mr. Hecht’s direction, though, has not been
able to elicit anything special from his unexciting cast and THE
CLEARING remains just another bump in the current season’s log.
