ASU Department of Theatre's A Sense of Place or Virgil is Still the Frogboy at The Galvin Playhouse
(out of 
)Mark S.P. Turvin
(home office) (602) 912-0117
I can be reached for comment via e-mail at: mspt@goldfishpublishers.com
Reviewed 12/1/99
(out of )Lanford Wilson is one of America's contemporary playwriting treasures. His amazing list of plays, beginning with Hot l Baltimore, and proceeding through Lemon Sky, Balm in Gilead, The Talley Trilogy, and Burn This, has established him in the stratosphere with fellow playwrights Edward Albee, Sam Shepard, August Wilson and David Mamet. When he's on, he's an emotional and ironic master. When he's off, there are still flashes of brilliance worth the investment of time. His current lighthearted comedy, A Sense of Place or Virgil is Still the Frogboy, may owe more to Neil Simon than Anton Chekov, contrary to what longtime and current Director Marshall W. Mason maintains, but it still has some funny moments, and tosses some sideways glances to larger issues of lifetime friendships, the American caste system, and self-awareness. With a generally solid cast, and a beautiful design element, this ASU Department of Theatre production is enjoyable. This is despite being at some times shrill, and others long-winded.
Schuyler is a poor little trust fund boy who has opened his father's guest house on the Hampton beach to his longtime friends; computer nerd and suddenly rich Josh, and successful-but-unfulfilled twentysomething accountant, Mary. Mary has brought along her flaky dancer-wannabe and chef extraordinaire friend, Ann. During the summer, Mary hooks up with a townie carpenter, Chuck. This group searches for their separate and collective identities, deals with differences in class, and encounters emotional and spiritual growing pains.
Commissioned in 1996 by the Bay Street Theatre in Wilson's longtime home of Sag Harbor, the play spends a lot more time dropping the names of local streets, landmarks and haunts that would be recognizable to locals, and a little less time fleshing out the five stereotypical characters. Even worse, these are the least jaded Gen-Xers you'll ever encounter. Missing are the current youthful generation's hip self-awareness that makes them the oldest youngsters since the stone age. This mid-twenties gang is only just discovering their inherent class system and desperate need for extended families, a trend seemingly more appropriate for teens in this day and age. Also, Mr. Wilson has not mastered the current slang of this generation in the way he was able to tap into the disenfranchised '60s youth counterculture. Finally, while cyberspace and cordless phones have made dramatic advances in the past few years, they don't make for inherently dramatic action. The first fifteen minutes of each act are spent on a computer and phone respectively, mapping out the dramatic course of the rest of the action.
Mr. Mason has directed the show at a fast clip, creating some interesting stage pictures, but allowing the actors to butcher some of their line deliveries with various inclusions of whining, blubbering, and jabbering. The strongest of the cast is Darren Hay as the lowbrow but earnest Chuck. He never plays at rough or ill-mannered, and does a great job of bringing across a nice guy simply raised on the wrong side of the railroad causeway. Nearly as good are Joe Flowers as people-person Schuyler, and Jessica Chapman as successful-but-emotionally-unavailable Mary. Mr. Flowers occasionally skirts into the area of stereotype, but is congenial enough with his flat character. Ms. Chapman is quick and bright, but is textually forced to spend an inordinate amount of time shushing her fellow performers during their various emotional outbursts.
Jeff Miller flounders as the general onlooker, Josh. He tends to fall through the cracks when not speaking, which is a fair amount of the time during this summer of self-exploration. Painful is Nancie S. Willis' unexpanded presentation of the whiny, temperamental, and ultimately annoying artist-in-training, Ann. With nothing but borderline-psychotic touchiness, monumental self-centeredness and mushmouthed outbursts to define her character, it's odd why anyone would want to spend a summer in the Hamptons with this character and ever let her out of a locked kitchen.
The onstage recreation of the gorgeous living room and grounds of the guesthouse to the Hampton estate is perfectly handled in Jeff Thomson's Set Design. Dennis Parichy's mood-setting lighting and Carlo Dangal Pascual Nakar's well-integrated and subtle sound enhance the design elements of the show even more. While generally on, some of the costume choices by Connie Furr-Soloman totally miss the mark, especially some unflattering creations for Ann, making her look more like hippie-dropout than dancer-in-training.
For a light comedy that only threatens to consider deeper subjects while still reaching a comedic tone, and even a hilarious pitch in some sections, this is a pretty good presentation by two of America's great theatre legends.
Production Details:
A Sense of Place or Virgil is Still the Frogboy by Lanford Wilson
Arizona State University Department of Theatre
The Galvin Playhouse, Tempe
(480) 965-6447
December 1st - December 5th , 1999