Talley’s Folly
Lanford
Wilson
Harry’s
Upstage Theatre
Walking
in to visit an old friend not seen in years, I always wonder if our reunion
will be as good as I remember our first meeting. Such is my feeling as I enter the small, intimate Harry’s
Upstage at the Aurora and see the somewhat familiar “folly” before me – a
latticed, gazebo-looking boat landing complete with row boat, river grass, and
lots of oars, floats and fishing gear hanging on its feeble walls. It has been about twenty years since I
first met Lanford Wilson’s much-performed, universally loved Talley’s Folly, and I wonder if the warm glows it still elicits through my
memory bank will be reinforced tonight.
As soon
as the bearded actor in full suit and tie walks down the aisle, breaks the
fourth wall, and begins addressing the audience as if we were old friends, I am
ready for him to take us to that 1944 evening in Lebanon, Missouri. As he meticulously sets the scene of dappled
moonlight, frogs croaking, water-lapping at dock’s edge, and far-off band
playing (and in fact he does so twice in a masterfully executed
prologue to the evening), I am so reminded of another opening of a personal
favorite (the Stage Manager of Our Town). I am now even more ready to be drawn into this story that
feels so familiar yet is so particular to the time and place of Second World
War, small-town America. We are
told tonight will be like a waltz; and as the actor directs the lazy symphony
of croaks, barks, and crickets to commence and the lights to soften, the dance
between two would-be lovers begins.
The
Jewish, European-accented accountant Matt Friedman has arrived from St. Louis
to pursue the hand of the red-haired, goyish nurse’s aide, Sally Talley, who
still lives (reluctantly, we discover) with her small-town, factory-owing
family. It seems that Matt has
already presented himself to her family and has been chased out of the house by
Sally’s ‘Communist-hating’ brother (who also does not want a Jew hanging
around) holding a two-barreled shotgun.
She meets him in this now-dilapidated folly built in an earlier century
by her ancestor, full of supposed fury for his showing up here instead of at
her clinic and for his coming back after a year’s absence from their first and
only week together. His almost
daily letters to her have made no impression (or so she says); and the more
Matt tries to convince her of his sincerity of devotion and desire, the more
she resists – except when his humor and awkward mishaps (like falling through
the rotting floor or pulling down a loose shelf onto his head) bring her guard
down just enough for us – and him – to suspect she ‘doth protest too
much.’ As the conversations ebb
and flow, the dance of the two also proceeds, not always as a waltz but sometimes
as an angry tango, a sexy cha-cha-cha, or a rambunctious lindy. But when the two ease into the moment
and allow truthful revelations of past histories to spill forth, the waltz
reappears as a beautiful cadence of emerging love.
What
makes this Folley truly memorable are the
performances of our Matt and Sally.
Rolf Saxon commands attention from his first venture beyond the fourth
wall as he engages us early on before stepping into the story. He is interesting in his somewhat
foreign and sophisticated (to this small town and to 1944 America)
manners. His boyish pursuits of
love are awkward and sometimes silly and are totally not what one would expect
of a 42-year-old accountant. We
are quickly sold on his sincerity and are surely all cheering him on as he
trips, flops, and flings his way from one corner of the small dock house to the
other, trying to get and keep the attention of the very coy, often annoyed
Sally.
Lauren
English equally matches Mr. Saxon’s comeuppance with her own reserved yet defiant
stance as she tries to persuade him to leave the property at once before her
anti-Semantic brother arrives.
Yet, we see in her shining eyes and in the up-turned corners of her
mouth that her words do not really match her heart; and we suspect that she
really wants to be won over. Tears
of frustration with her small-town, gossip-filled life and her narrow-minded
family often well in her eyes.
From our vantage only a few feet away in this small venue, we experience
viscerally the anguish of a secret that somehow haunts and constrains Ms.
English’s Sally. As her muscles
tighten and relax beneath the new dress Sally has bought for the evening’s
encounter, we can see a struggle and feel a compassion that are felt deep
within.
We are
drawn into this dance of our two would-be lovers by the skilled and sensitive
performances of two actors who also know just when to crack a smile, laugh at
their own uptightness, and sigh with the wonder of the evening and each other. Much credit must also go to the astute
direction of Joy Carlin. She orchestrates
the moves of her two actors through every inch of this small, confined corner
of Lebanon, Missouri and knows just when to shift moods and modes so to keep us
as well as Sally and Matt fully engaged and on track.
On the
surface, this is a beautiful love story.
In its undercurrents flow issues America was and was not dealing with in
1942: anti-Semitism, class
divisions, sexism, fear of the immigrant.
A 25-year-old play of an almost 75-year-old story is unfortunately still
very current but also fortunately still very touching and heart-warming.
Rating: 4 E’s
Talley’s Folly continues at Berkeley’s Aurora
Theatre (Harry’s Upstage) through June 7, 2015.
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