(THEATRE'S LEITER SIDE is now a book--two books, in fact. No, make that three books! The first covers the 2012-2013 season, when, at the age of 72, I began reviewing plays. It contains full reviews and shorter comments on 150 shows, as well as a brief memoir on how I got into this critical mess. The 2013-2014 season follows, with 300 substantial reviews, so many it had to be published in two volumes (May to November; December to April). Both are available at affordable prices (paperback and Kindle) at Amazon.com. Christmas is coming so why not consider them as gifts for your theatreloving friends and family? Click here for more information.)
"Remembering St. Vincent's"
"Remembering St. Vincent's"
On Monday night, presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren spoke
to a huge crowd in Greenwich Village’s Washington Square Park, standing in the
shadow of where the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire occurred, and
referring to it in her speech in connection with the corruption that led to the
catastrophe. About a mile away in another part of the Village, I was a couple
of blocks from where stood St.
Vincent’s, the lost hospital lovingly
memorialized in the title and action of Novenas for a Lost Hospital, Cusi
Cram’s ambitious, sincerely felt, but too often flatlining journey through the
century and a half of its history.
Manhattan’s first Catholic hospital, St. Vincent’s was founded,
during the cholera outbreak of 1849, in a rented house on West 13th Street by
nuns of the Sisters of Charity, established by another woman named Elizabeth, America’s
first saint, Elizabeth
Seton. St. Vincent’s moved to Seventh Avenue and West 11th Street in 1856. There,
it became renowned as a treatment center for the victims not only of such
disasters as the Triangle fire, but the sinking of the Titanic in 1912, and, toward
the end of the 20th century, the AIDS epidemic, in the fight against which it
was a leader, both in caring for the afflicted and as a research center.
Financial difficulties forced its closing in 2010, amid a storm of controversy,
after which it was demolished and replaced by a luxury condominium building.
Novenas for a Lost Hospital expresses the hospital’s devotion
to the care of its patients by treating us—its 60 attendees—as a community
gathered to honor both those who served the place as doctors and nurses and the
patients who suffered and, of course, died there. This is done—at least during
clement weather—by first gathering us at St. John’s in the Village, a 19th-century
Episcopalian church on 11th Street, around the corner from the Rattlestick Playwrights
Theater on Waverly Place.
 |
| Kathleen Chalfant, Alvin Keith. All photos: Julietta Cervantes. |
 |
| Natalie Woolams-Torres, Leland Fowler, Ken Barnett, Kelly McAndrew, Kathleen Chalfant. |
There, after ascending its long staircase, the walls adorned
with artwork inspired by the AIDs epidemic, we enter the performing space
(designed by Caroline Mraz), where we snake around movable, curtained units—like
those placed around hospital beds—examining the numerous historical illustrations
and notes detailing St. Vincent’s history. Then, the units removed, we sit three-quarters-round
style on actual (therefore uncomfortable) church pews.
 |
| Justin Genna, Kathleen Chalfant, Kelly McAndrew, Alvin Keith. |
The play ensues, during much of which we keep the little,
battery-operated candles we’ve been handed lit. This intensifies the solemn
atmosphere, especially when the lighting—delicately designed by Stacey Derosler—dims.
When the play ends, we descend the steps, file down Waverly to 11th, and, as music
makers play alongside us, accompany them rhythmically by shaking colored eggs filled
with tiny grains. Eventually, we make our way across Greenwich Avenue to the
lovely AIDS Memorial for some more ritualizing, led by the evening’s always-excellent
leading lady, Kathleen Chalfant, who plays Elizabeth Seton.
 |
| Leland Fowler, Ken Barnett, Justin Genna. |
What did I forget? Oh, yes. The play. Novenas for a Lost
Hospital is an episodic, nine-scene work (nine being significant to the
meaning of the prayers called novenas), each
scene designated as a prayer and marked by the lighting of a votive candle on a
table along one wall.
 |
| Ken Barnett, Justin Genna. |
I’ll note the contents of just a few scenes to provide an
idea of what’s involved. In “Prayer #1,” two mid-19th-century nuns Ulrica (Natalie
Woolams-Torres) and Angela (Kelly McAndrew), standing near white, cardboard
models of the St. Vincent’s of the future, allude to the planned memorial for
the hospital we’re actually participating in, and are joined by Toussaint, dressed
in mint-green, 18th-century formalwear.
 |
| Ken Barnett. |
Toussaint was a rather remarkable historical figure, Haitian-born,
a freed slave, successful New York hairdresser, philanthropist with deep ties
to the Catholic Church, and prospective saint. He reminds the nuns of the
slaves who laid the bricks for the surrounding neighborhood. Then Seton appears,
we learn all about her and her mission, and a candle is lit to remember the
hospital’s 161 years of service after being “created by women who cared.”
“Prayer #2” focuses on two dedicated, modern nurses (Woolams-Torres
and McAndrew), a dying AIDS patient, Lazarus (Ken Barnett), and his potential “resurrection,”
with Toussaint and Seton commenting from the sidelines as his “spirit guides.”
His late boyfriend, a choreographer, dances into the scene and they recall
their love as well as their sexual highlights.
 |
| Kathleen Chalfant, Alvin Keith, Justin Genna, Kelly McAndrew. |
“Prayer #3” moves back to 1849, so that Toussaint and Elizabeth
can show Lazarus a physician, Dr. Potter (Leland Fowler), standing over a corpse
with an old-fashioned surgical instrument. He’s confronted by Sister Ulrica,
who objects to his experimenting on cholera victims in a Catholic hospital (he’s
actually preparing for his first surgery), while Dr. Potter extols the humanity
of the nuns’ difficult work. This devolves into talk about anti-Irish, anti-poor
bias, and Ulrica’s vocation, before we return to Elizabeth and Toussaint using
what they’ve seen to give Lazarus renewed faith, although in what is far from
clear.
And so it goes, for six more “prayers,” each one a new
situation, with a blend of historical chitchat and contemporary issues, none of
it building toward any major development or resolution, much of it vague, and
most of it interesting only for the historical tidbits it now and then drops.
It’s all well-acted and effectively staged by Daniella Topol but there’s little
to latch onto other than the general feeling that we’ve lost a major institution
and ain’t that a shame.
 |
| Goussy Celestin. |
The work veers from the personal to the educational
(didactic might be better), often breaks the fourth wall, includes a number of
laugh lines (some at the expense of Catholicism), allows for multiple
anachronisms, includes both historical and contemporary costumes (designed by Ari
Fulton), introduces dance within dramatic scenes, and has most of the actors playing
more than one role.
As drawn, none of the characters is particularly interesting
since even the historically important ones—Venerable Pierre Toussaint
(Alvin Keith) and Elizabeth Seton—serve more as icons than as real people.
Both, however, especially Toussaint, could be the subject of a major film or
drama.
Otherwise, and I hate to say this about a play dealing with such issues, Novenas for a Lost Hospital fails to bring its subject to
dramatic life. In fact, as each scene ends with a new votive candle being lit,
it’s hard not to start counting them and waiting, praying even, for the
lighting of the ninth and final one.
Rattlestick
Playwrights Theatre
64 Waverly Place,
NYC
Through October 13
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