Fifth of July
Lanford
Wilson
An octet
of family and long-time friends collect in the small living room literally at
the audience’s feet in the intimate setting of the Aurora. Night has set in on July 4, 1977. Before twenty-four hours pass, a number
of major transitions are going to occur, some more easily and happily than
others. Hopes and relationships
rooted in the turbulent but anything-is-possible 1960s have in many cases
withered away in Lanford Wilson's Fifth of July. A useless and
horrible war; overuse of pills, pot, and worse; and naïve beliefs that posters,
marches, and an occasional Molotov cocktail can awaken a nation have all come
home to roost for various ones of our gathered clan. Each is looking for some new beginning, but on July 4 none
is totally sure what that will look like in the end.
Sally
Friedman has been storing her beloved husband’s ashes in a Whitman candy box
for a year, opening the lid once a day for him to breathe the fresh air of the
Lebanon, Missouri countryside near the dock where they once declared their
love, 33 years prior. She is soon
to leave her family’s heritage, 19-room house for a retirement center in
California (living next to a brother and his wife she has never liked) but must
first reluctantly scatter her Matt’s ashes to the earth before flying
westward. Family and friends have
come to support and to ensure the task gets done, but some have arrived with
other agenda in mind, too. We
slowly discover just how tangled the web of relationships is and how deep are
wounds within and among them. But along
with them, we also get to enjoy the happier recollections of those bygone ‘60s
and to revel in the enthusiasm and pipe dreams of the new generation, especially
as represented by young Shirley Talley.
As
thirteen-year-old Shirley, Oceana Ortiz almost steals the show the entire
production. Her every entry is
worthy of a close-up camera shot as she reincarnates in Betty Grable style the
starlets of the 1940s and 50s, complete with evening wear, swooping gestures,
and the overly sophisticated voice of the gentry class. She delights those on stage and those
watching as she fawns, flashes, and faints in ever more drama. Her dreams of future stardom and
greatness are in great contrast to the spent and retread dreams of the older
others surrounding her. She is the
Puck who keeps pulling the cynical, quarrelling, and morose individuals out of
their funk. But like the others,
young Shirley too will face an important turning point on this 5th
of July.
Like the
1960s, our gathering is full of quirk and eclectics. John Landis (a lanky and impatient John Girot) is married to
copper heiress and rising singing star Gwen (Nancy Zoppi) who cannot stop
popping and snorting various substances and who is much like an over-grown
Shirley in over-blown dramatics and dreaming. John was and is still entangled in ways to be discovered
with a brother and sister pair, Kenneth and June Talley. A Vietnam War veteran and now crippled
after losing his legs, Kenneth (the very convincing Craig Marker) lives with
his lover Jed Jenkins (Josh Schell), a master-degreed horticulturist who is the
most grounded of all this clan. June
is a former left-wing activist and troublemaker who now must figure out if and
how to be Shirley’s mom. And
somewhere in orbit around them all is Gwen’s band member Weston (Harold Pierce)
who is tripping around and looking for UFOs in the Missouri sky.
With such
a group, a lot can happen; and a lot does. But along the way, each member confronts new realities of his/her
1977, makes important decisions, and resolves one way or another issues that
have simmered for years and in some cases boiled over in front of us all. In the end, they each eave with new
resolve; and we leave having been touched by their emotional and impacting
awakenings and transformations.
Fifth of July has now closed at the Aurora
Theater, having run April 17-May 17, 2015.
Rating: 5
E
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