7. ANNAPURNA
When you enter the Acorn Theatre
to see Sharr White’s ANNAPURNA you may want to reach for a Coors since designer
Thomas Walsh’s set shows a naturalistically squalid trailer interior surrounded
by brightly realistic images of Rocky Mountain peaks. The filth-filled trailer,
like the shabby office of THE FEW (see the review before this one), is packed
with the accumulated detritus of years of use and abuse. Actually, ANNAPURNA
and THE FEW share a few things in common. Each has someone who fled their loved
one after a dramatic occurrence and now, years later, seeks out that person in
search of some kind of redemption, even if reluctant to admit it. Each also has
a third party, a young man, yearning for a father figure, although this person
is an actual character in THE FEW and is only spoken of in ANNAPURNA, a
two-hander. In both, the onstage characters are writers or editors, personal letters
(the snail mail kind) play an important role, and the big reveals have to do
with what prompted the person who left to do so. While ANNAPURNA is well
written (and directed, by Bart DeLorenzo), however, it’s less affecting,
believable, or involving than THE FEW.
Certainly, the major draw is the
performances of TV stars Nick Offerman (“Parks and Recreation”) and Megan
Mullally (“Will and Grace"), husband and wife in real life, who appeared in
ANNAPURNA at the Odyssey Theatre Ensemble in Los Angeles a year ago, although
the play was premiered with other actors in San Francisco in 2011. Mr. Offerman
plays Ulysses, a bearded, gruff, Hemingway-ish, recovering alcoholic and
one-time cowboy poet and English professor now living in self-imposed,
self-pitying exile. Ms. Mullally is his ex-wife Emma, who also was his editor,
and who suddenly walked out on him 20 years ago in the middle of the night.
Just as suddenly, and without advance notice (he has no phone), she shows up at
his insect-infested mountain aerie in Paonia, Colorado; he’s anything but
thrilled to see her, having gotten used to his solitary, if unsanitary,
lifestyle. The only thing he can say, in fact, is "Holy crap!" which he repeats in amazement several times. It seems that their 25-year-old son, Sam, who was five when Emma
left, has discovered a cache of letters his dad had written to him, which even
Emma didn’t know about, and has learned Ulysses’ whereabouts through the
services of a private eye. Ulysses, for his part, is deeply puzzled about why
Sam never wrote back to him.
Megan Mullally, Nick Offerman. Photo: Monique Carboni.
Emma, hoping to smooth the way
before Sam arrives, gets there first and discovers her divorced husband living
a grit-encrusted life, wearing nothing but a mucky little apron (to prevent
damage to his nether regions from the spatter when he fries the spoiled
sausages he bought at the Dollar Store). Ulysses not only calls his location “the
ass-crack of the Rockies,” he literally reveals his personal version of that
remark whenever he turns around. He wears a backpack with an oxygen tank whose
tube enters his nose because this former chain smoker, who puffed five packs
the day he quit, is dying of emphysema, a fate made even more apparent by the
surgical bandage on his chest put there after a lung was removed.
Emma’s a smartly dressed, perhaps
too fashionably coiffed (with magenta-tinted hair), glasses-wearing woman who
hasn’t had it easy after leaving Ulysses and marrying again, as attested by the
bruises she displays. But despite Ulysses’ retch-inducing habitat (I won’t give
away why he keeps his inhaler sealed away), she seems determined to resolve their
issues, meanwhile setting to the task of cleaning the place with ferocious single-mindedness.
(THE FEW also has a scene of intensive straightening up.) As Mr. White continues
to string out the situation between Ulysses and Emma with memories, arguments,
and questions, one big issue hovers, what did he do that led to her abandoning
him? This, of course, is kept secret for as long as possible in the one-act,
95-minute play, and when it comes the payoff is less than earth-shattering,
even if Ulysses— having been subject to alcohol-induced blackouts (a device playwrights love to exploit)—has no memory
of it.
As in THE FEW (despite its
ambiguous staging), an optimistic ending is provided in which we hear Ulysses
read to Emma from the epic poem he’s been writing, called “Annapurna,” a
metaphoric title referring to the dangerous Himalayan mountain of that name and
to Emma herself. The manuscript itself, having been rendered essentially
unreadable, is spoken by Ulysses from memory, which I suspect is a feat most
modern epic poets would be incapable of achieving. Perhaps his name, with its
echo of Homeric bardism, is excuse enough for this feat.
Despite the mechanical nature of
the plotting, Mr. White’s squabbling dialogue is juicy enough to sustain
interest, especially when as well delivered as it is in Mr. Offerman’s bullish
yet sweetly vulnerable manner. Ms. Mullally’s voice can be shrill but she
brings intelligence and skill to Emma, and makes an effective partner to her
costar/spouse. Both balance the play’s darker moments well with infusions of sharp
humor. John Ballinger’s sound design, in which a barking dog plays an important
part, is valuable, as are the
costumes by Ann Closs-Farley and the often shifting lighting effects of Michael
Gend.
ANNPURNA may not rise as high as its
namesake mountain, but it offers its actors a chance to scale some heights of
their own.
