Lunastage - 2006 - 2007 Season - The Kreutzer Sonata

Little Beasts at Luna Stage

Friday, May 04, 2007
By STANLY HALL for The Montclair Times

Imagine being able to explore inside an artist’s head. What drives them to create? Why have they chosen certain colors for their masterpiece? What shadows from their past haunt them? In Luna Stage’s world premiere of “Little Beasts” we are given that opportunity. This savvy drama takes a psychological dive into the disturbing mind of Romaine Brooks, an early 1900s American painter. Plays based on factual subjects tend to be weighed down with a history lesson, two acts of exposition, leaving no room for drama — instead, in “Little Beasts,” a new play by Jeanne Marshall, the story is given the deserved attention while the history is smoothly blended in, creating a fascinating portrait of drama.

Romaine (Kathleen Marsh), a turn-of-the-century artist specializing in painting grey-toned portraits, is living in Paris with her longtime, promiscuous partner, Natalie Barney (Nancy Shaheen) who has just returned from a two-week excursion with a younger woman. It doesn’t take long to realize that these two put up with each other’s antics. Romaine continuously overlooks Natalie’s sexual affairs, while Natalie painstakingly shares Romaine with Ro-maine’s ghostly demons: Beatrice (Rebecca Lingafelter), a younger, spoiled version of Romaine, and Ella (Mona Hennessy), Romaine’s emotionally abusive dead mother. The line of reality begins to blur as Romaine concentrates less on her relationship with Natalie and more on her disturbingly dysfunctional youth — stemming from Ella’s non-stop attention to Beatrice’s dying brother, St. Mar.

Romaine can’t let go of the fact that Ella somehow holds Beatrice responsible for his death. This only causes Beatrice to take on the “me against the world” attitude — hating everyone except Romaine — whom she wants to have all to herself. Natalie is at her wit’s end trying to compete with invisible spirits of Romaine’s past and struggles to remain with her mentally ill love. Romaine does manage to find relief (of sorts) and an understanding of truth in one person, her versatile butler, Henri (Lawrence E. Street).

One thing becomes clear. If Romaine wants to save her relationship with Natalie, she must find a solution to her consumptive obsession with the past. Jeanne Marshall paves a smooth roadway of dialogue that both engages and challenges our minds at the theater. There should be an immediate question the play poses in our own lives: How do we perceive the past? Example: Do we really know why the Starbucks barista gives us — rather me — the evil eye every time I stroll up to the counter and order from her? Or have I concocted a fantasy in my head — perhaps ordering a “small” caramel macchiato instead of a “tall.” Trite as my example may be, we ultimately choose what affects us in our life.

The cast is well-deserved of praise with Marsh leading the way. Her approach to Romaine contained the appropriate fusion of concern and affliction the character demands, without going over-the-top as some actors can do playing such roles. Nancy Shaheen provided the believable licentious spark of Natalie balanced with an underlying fear of aging, especially in moments of unspoken dialogue. Helping to round out this solid ensemble was Mona Hennessy as Ella and Rebecca Lingafelter as Beatrice. These two women held their ground inside the delusional head of Romaine. A notable mention should be given to Lawrence E. Street as Henri for supplying some of the lighter moments of the show.

Jane Mandel’s staging was fully executed with choreographic movements paralleled to an artist’s brushstroke on canvas, capturing portrait-like moments for the audience — all the while being careful in avoiding the muddiness of colors in a complex play.

The costumes (Kathleen Kesterson) and lighting (Jim Nagle) remained simple enough as to not distract us from the story, but rather to blend into the marvelous masterpiece of a set designed by Fred Kinney. In this two-sided seating performance space, the stage has been transformed from top to bottom, into a unique arrangement of Romaine Brooks’ paintings, which becomes almost as stimulating as the story.

Luna Stage should be very proud that it has produced a piece that is worth talking about. As soon as the play concluded, a couple to my right immediately began analyzing this intriguing play. I overheard another group attempting to explain the demons in their own past — thus discussing ways to release these things that cause so much anguish in our lifetime. Our human mind is so complex. Sometimes the hardest thing to do is to put to rest such pains and move forward.

That being said, I now walk myself over to Starbucks, perhaps to see if that barista I mentioned earlier is working. It’s time that I get the guts to ask her if she really does hate me … and this time, I will order the drink by its rightful size … a tall.

“Little Beasts” by Jeanne Marshall, plays through May 20, at Luna Stage, 695 Bloomfield Ave. Performances are on Thursdays at 7:30 p.m.; Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m.; and Sundays, at 2 p.m. For reservations, call the box office at 973-744-3309.

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