Arlington's Keegan Theatre joins forces with a new kid on the theatrical block, Fountainhead Theatre, to stage the area premiere of Irish author Brian Friel's latest play, "Give Me Your Answer, Do!" at the Rosslyn Spectrum.
There is a solid feeling about every aspect of the production, from the setting to the acting to the sound and lighting design. The effect is enhanced by the way they have sectioned off an area in the audience to counteract the usual problem of this hall, which doubles as a conference facility, seeming too big and remote for an intimate play.
Friel is one of Ireland's best and most active playwrights. His "Dancing at Lughnasa" won the Olivier award in London and the Tony on Broadway a few years back and was mounted by Keegan Theatre two years ago as part of its trilogy of works in the Irish Arts Festival. This new play has much in common with his earlier work — clear plotting of an elegantly simple story told through thoroughly appropriate but none-the-less beautiful language steeped in the national identity of the Irish.
In "Give Me Your Answer, Do!" Friel explores the value of an artist’s work not only in monetary terms, but also as the sum of a life's effort.
Perhaps, at age 70, Friel wanted to explore the value of his own life. If so, one hopes he came to the conclusion that his extraordinary career stringing words together was worth much more than the mere financial rewards it earned.
Friel's story is set in a remote former vicarage in Ballybeg, County Donegal. Tom Connolly, a noted Irish novelist, is having his career's worth of manuscripts and files appraised for sale to a museum/library, which had previously purchased the collection of a friend and fellow writer.
Michael Replogle plays Tom in a nicely understated performance which lets Friel's language shine quietly. He is at his finest in the scenes that open and close the play, in which he visits his grown daughter Bridget, an institutionalized autistic child bound to a wheelchair. Emily Riehl-Bedford delivers a haunting wordless performance Bridget.
Charlotte Akin plays his quietly suffering wife Daisy, who visits the gin bottle instead of her daughter. She avoids overplaying either the inebriation or the alienation of this unhappy woman, trapped not so much by the bottle as by her genuine devotion to her husband.
She clearly believes that supporting his need for isolation is a worthy calling. She avoids making that devotion the object of a preachy value judgment, either about wifely duties or her husband's status as an artist.
Linda High contributes a quiet strength in her performance as Maggie Donovan, Daisy’s mother. She, too, has a husband whose needs dominate her life and frame her fears for the future. Her husband Jack, played nicely by Stan Shulman, is suffering from a peculiarly socially unacceptable form of dementia as he ages.
High benefits from the fact that her character is given some of Friel's most poetic dialogue. She delivers lines, like "Wouldn't life be wonderful if we could summon amnesia?" and "All I can see is that laughing boy who flooded my head with music 40 years ago," with a marvelously understated clarity.
Leslie A. Kobylinski's direction concentrates attention on the progression of the story lines, allowing the strength of Friel's language to shine through without distracting emphasis.
Her approach trusts the material's strengths but it also leaves exposed some of the weaknesses in Friel's plotting. As a result, when the magic of the image-filled dialogue so valued by the traditions of Irish literature fades, there are unresolved questions that fester.
In her director's notes in the program, she terms it an "open-ended discussion that allows each of us to draw our own conclusions and write a personal unseen third act."
Many audience members may want to stop after the show to discuss those questions over a cup of coffee — perhaps Irish coffee.