Shuffling Off...

A.J. Gurney owes me half a play. Well, maybe a third if he is adroit enough to fix what I think is wrong with his play Buffalo Gal. Don’t get me wrong, this long one act is perfectly pleasant and the premise is interesting enough to pique one’s interest: A semi-famous television actress of a “certain age” agrees to star in a production of Anton Chekhov’s Cherry Orchard at the theater where she started her career in Buffalo, NY some thirty years earlier. She arrives grandly, shakes up the natives grandly and departs with (perhaps sincere) repentance when an offer of an on-going role in an upcoming television series arrives on her handheld mechanical device (perhaps a blackberry). Her fawning subjects, both on stage and, well, in the audience (us) are left gasping when she sucks the life out of the air and, flinging a promise over her departing shoulder that she would only miss one, maybe two, rehearsals, she disappears into the ether, stage left. Everybody left behind is fully aware that it’s not a likely prospect they will be seeing her any time soon despite the fact the actress grew up in Buffalo and, during the course of the play, professes an interest in moving “home” and buying the house where her grandmother lived.

Every character in the play seems to have his or her purpose in explaining the whys and wherefores of “regional” theater. The stage manager is used as a device to explain to us how much money this “star” would have to forego to do Chekhov in Buffalo; right down to specifics, that is, $463 a week she would make (presumably after taxes) as opposed to the possible $1 million over time if the series gets picked up. How can “art” compete with that? There is a young intern from a local college who is writing a thesis on regional theaters in the U.S. so the topic gets covered nicely. The director fantasizes a rosy future if she can bring off a successful production of a Chekhov classic with a proven star (we’ll take it to Broadway!). An actor brought in to get approval from the star (she gives it) because he is to play her character’s brother in the play and he happens to be African American; thus giving us a primer on just what “non-traditional” casting means and which has, nationally, become fairly common.

I’m not sure what the function is of the old boy friend who turns up unannounced and wants to rekindle that 30-year-old flame, despite having a family of his own. I guess Gurney thought some love interest was needed although our star isn’t much into it (consequently neither are we). All of these characters are played nicely by the actors assigned to them however, even though you learn to like them, you really don’t learn much about them. They touch you only a little but don’t make much of a dent. Overall, it’s a play about doing a play at a theater you don’t much care about and it trails off into a future in which you mildly wonder what happens next; but oh, well, no big deal.

There are two aspects of this production that have the Life-Imitates-Art-Blah-Blah-Blah and that is the casting of Susan Sullivan (I won’t list her accomplishments…Google her if you want) in the part of the television star, Amanda. Secondly, it’s telling that the professional regional theater in Buffalo on which this play is based, the Studio Arena Theatre, went belly-up in February of this year. Consequently, although lightly played, it’s a sad story brought home by the fact that, in one brilliant technical move Ms. Sullivan has a fitting for her Amanda costume (and a photo shoot thereof) and she effectively slides subtly into the dignity and pathos of Chekhov’s Madame Ranevskaya as well as Amanda’s take on the role and you sense the actress (both Ms. Sullivan and Amanda, if you get my drift) really could do this classic role, maybe brilliantly.

Buffalo Gal is an enjoyable evening but a slight-of-hand trifle that works for the hour and 20 minutes it takes to get us back out on East 59th St., but without much bacon to chew on. However, the designer pizza (shrimp and artichoke) at Shelly’s Tradizionale Ristorante de Pesce right up the street was certainly crispy and, even better, available since it was still so early in the evening.

Have you noticed that more and more plays are being encapsulated into only one act these days? I guess it’s easier to write just one “curtain” scene or speech instead of the traditional two or, god forbid, the three required for longer works. Not that Gurney gives us a climax in Buffalo Gal since he allowed his ending to float off rather than have any sort of finality about it. Being the theatrical puppets we are we filled in our own individual endings which might have been his intention, but, NUH UH! You owe me at least 20 more minutes, Mr. Gurney! Tell me what YOU think happened to all these characters and why. I mean it! I don’t like treading water when it’s not deep.