Lunastage - 2006 - 2007 Season - The Kreutzer Sonata

Playwright Anton Dudley delivers a fresh, clear and theatrically riveting script

Wednesday, February 07, 2007
By THOM MOLYNEAUX for The Montclair Times

In “Honor and the River,” a new play by Anton Dudley that is having its world premiere in Luna Stage, much of the action does take place on a river, in a sleek racing shell, and one of the young men rowing that shell is named Honor.

The river is in New England, and Honor and Eliot, the other young man, are students at a prestigious prep school, partners on the school’s championship racing team. Honor is having a problem dealing with the expectations and demands of his recently widowed father and Eliot is struggling with the death of his father, his fear of the river and the fact that he has an adolescent crush on Honor. The boys’ troubled relationship, the acts of betrayal, their inner demons and vulnerabilities, the pressure of the racing team and the romantic involvement of their parents, is the story told in “Honor and the River.”

But it’s not the story told, it’s how it’s told, that makes “Honor and the River” a must-see at Luna Stage.

The “how” is a clear, uncluttered theatricality that is fresh, often riveting and for the most part, overpowers the flaws in the script.

When you enter, Luna Stage, you see a new configuration: seats on three sides of an open, barewood-planked stage. A wooden column stands in each of the four corners. Your eyes glance up and you notice what looks like a sleek racing boat, hoisted by a series of ropes and pulleys toward the ceiling of the room.

That boat lowered by the actors and suspended a few feet above the floor becomes the racing shell on the water. Flipped over, it’s the dining room table in Eliot’s house, and placed on the floor, it’s a rowboat for the parents.

Hoisted above, effectively lit by Dave Feldman, it’s the demarcation point between the surface of the river and the underwater depths that Eliot swims through as he fights his fear of drowning and the ghost of his dead father. The director, Nancy Robillard, artfully uses Robert Monaco’s sparse set and Feldman’s lighting to create evocative atmospheres and to fluidly move the actors through time and space.

The second overtly theatrical aspect of Anton Dudley’s script is its extensive use of the lengthy dramatic monologue. The script’s basic structure seems to be long monologue followed by short scene, followed by long monologue, followed by short scene, etc. And many of the short scenes include long monologues. Of course, the law of averages precludes all these monologues being equally effective.

Handsome and sensitive, Andy Phelan, who plays Eliot, has the monumental task of delivering the bulk of the monologues. Some of his lengthy speeches don’t have the major dramatic impact of vital, necessary conversations with the audience but come across as minor, artful recitations.

Phelan has a nice presence on stage and is especially effective in a long monologue, near the end of the play, that breaks down and details the specifics of rowing in competition. As he speaks it, he does it: floating in air, imaginary oars in hand, repeating every physical action, over and over again, intensely focused on the task and the words, living it and telling it, with urgency and grace.

As Honor, David Michael Holmes, wears a perpetual scowl and seems committed to playing the angry young man, which he does convincingly. He could probably open up the character more and let us see some of his other qualities. Early in the play, he has his own long monologue, about the girl he’s in love with, that offers the opportunity to explore the character’s sensitivity and well-hidden romanticism. Holmes settles for momentarily dropping the anger and reciting the monologue with gung-ho enthusiasm.

For much of the play, the role of Mr. Roberts, Honor’s father, is pretty much of a cliché, the pompous father, and the resonant voiced Reathel Bean dutifully plays him that way. Then the author gifts Bean with a scene (mostly long monologues) that lifts Mr. Roberts into the world of complex flesh and blood human beings. Reathel Bean embraces the character’s humanity and makes us feel his love for boating, helps us understand his relationship with his son, and lets us see his vulnerabilities.

The appealing Carolyn Popp is also given a long monologue that reveals shades of Eliot’s mother that hitherto had been left unexplored. That scene, however is undercut by some uncharacteristic static staging. It’s a long scene between mother and son and the director has them sitting at the table, across from each other for the entire scene. Unfortunately, from where I sat in the arena-style configuration, the back of the son’s head blocked my view of the mother, so during her lengthy monologue, I never once saw the attractive woman’s expressive face.

Though flawed, the Luna Stage production of “Honor and the River” is as theatrically effective and as visually arresting as any production I’ve seen this season.

Dive in.

“Honor and the River” runs through Feb. 25, at Luna Stage, 695 Bloomfield Ave. Tickets for Thursday performances are $20; Fridays and Sunday, $25; and Saturdays, $30. For reservations, call the box office at 973-744-3309, or visit online at www.lunastage.org.

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