IF THIS WALL COULD TALK (2/26/2011)

Town and gown disputes have gone on since towns and colleges have co-mingled.  In most instances, colleges and universities are viewed as a definite plus for communities.  What is special about the controversy I am going to talk about now is the fact that the dispute is over a tiny, tiny space that one might not even notice-- no sports arenas, giant lab buildings or parking garages here--a tiny theatre space. However, this tiny space has deep roots in the community of Greenwich Village in which it is located.  This building, which was originally a stable, and then a bottle factory, in 1918 became the New York home of the Provincetown Players.  Now owned by NYU (hence the gown issue), the Provincetown Playhouse is an iconic (a word that has become as overused as artisan, curate and surreal) site in the annals of New York theatre (legitimate theatre).  When NYU decided to completely renovate the building, the community was up in arms and fearful of what might be done.  In the demolition process (NYU assured folks that the exterior walls of the building would be saved) the theatre's north wall was damaged due to its delicate condition (remember that the original structure as a stable and not a bank).  So the north wall became the focal point of the community's outrage.

Joe Savatore, director and playwright associated with the Provincetown Playhouse, in developing shows for the theatre that would both help celebrate its renovation and also heal hostilities decided to focus on some of the first plays produced at the theatre by names associated with the first Provincetown Players -- Eugene O'Neill, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and Susan Glaspell.  Mr. Salvatore created a larger work to encapsulate three one-act plays by these three illustrious founders and came upon the idea of using the controversial wall as an underlying theme.  As he states in his program notes:  "I became interested in the idea of what might have been buried under the wall or even encased in the wall.  Could the Provincetown Players have left artifacts behind, and what would happen if someone found those artifacts? How could I use an incident like this  the catalyst for performing these three one-act plays?"

There is, by chance I am guessing, a literal wall in the first of the plays performed, Aria da Capo by Edna St, Vincent Millay.  There are figurative walls between people that play prominently in the other two plays, Fog by Eugene O'Neill and Trifles by Susan Glaspell.  Material developed by Mr. Salvatore forms the prologue, interludes and epilogue to the entire production.  The "spirits" of St. Vincent Millay, O'Neill and Glaspell present themselves and help motivate some students who have broken into the theatre on night as it is being renovated ostensibly because one of the students is working on a photo project (due the next morning, of course!).

All three plays reflect the essences of their playwrights.  St. Vincent Millay has written a verse drama that draws on the characters of Pierrot and Columbine, associated with the Italian commedia dell'arte, and Cothurnus, Thrysis and Corydon, all associated with the Elizabethan masque. True to its title, the play is in "da capo form" with a brief reprise of the opening section at the end.  In the middle section of the play, shepherds Thrysis and Coydon construct a wall as a "game," a game leads to their killing each other.  There are strong pacifist messages in the play,  fact that is all the more important as the U.S. was debating entering the "European war" what would become WWI.

In Fog, an early work by O'Neill, we encounter dramatic themes that would become his signatures. Four people are adrift in a rubber lifeboat.  Two of them, a mother and her child, are dead and the other two, "a man of business" and a poet, are the others.  In the fog, the two men discuss life and death and what constitutes a "good life."  Of course, the business man has no clue as to why the poet thinks as he does.  At the conclusion of the play, the characters are rescued.  The business man follows his rescuers to the steamer while the poet decides to stay on the raft with the dead woman and her child as it is towed to safety.  Class conflict and destinies that must be played out are important themes.

The final play of the evening, Trifles, is an early important feminist drama.  In this play, two men, assisted by a neighboring farmer, are investigating a murder in a farmhouse.  The farmer's wife and the wife of the sheriff are at first reluctant to enter the house.  The men follow one line of reasoning as they search for evidence while the women, who eventually are drawn into the kitchen of the house, discover evidence by totally different means.  What they notice are considered "trifles" by the men, hence the title.  The women discover evidence that the wife of the murdered man probably committed justifiable homicide and decide to conceal a crucial piece of evidence that would probably have been considered "totally circumstantial and irrelevant" by them.  If the men were not able to found evidence that the wife had murdered her husband she would be released.  

We must remember that this play was written in 1916.  The 19th amendment to the constitution which prohibited states from barring the right to vote on  the basis of sex was not passed until 1920.  Women's judgements on legal matters and their abilities to study material "scientifically" (as opposed to intuitively) were questioned as was, of course, the validity of intuitive logic which was thought of almost as an oxymoron.  The wall between men and women was high and wide.

The cast of NYU students in various stages of advancement, was uniformly very fine.  It was ironic, however, that the biography of the one actor who was consistently the most convincing  of the evening (five actors played roles in all three plays) was not included in the program.  It was a privilege to experience a play in this "iconic" theatre.  The wall, indeed, could talk.