There are few people in the United States who truly believe that Oswald acted alone during the Kennedy assassination. It's one of those disturbing suspicions of the national psyche that forever gnaws away at our belief in our government. Keith Reddin's Frame 312 tackles this basic suspicion, and then asks the more important question of whether if the truth is out there, do we really all want to know it in the first place? What better company than Actors Theatre to delve into the collective subconscious conscience? Director Matthew Wiener is expert in theatre of the uncomfortable, and finds the teetering balance between the decay of the nuclear family in the withering suburbs of the mid-1990s and the death of hope and its replacement by paranoia in the early 1960s after the collapse of Kennedy's Camelot. With visionary designers and a generally on-target cast, Mr. Wiener takes the audience on a wild ride of speculation, desperation, and resignation.
Lynette is the keeper of a horrible secret. Now the widowed maternal head of a neurotic clan, her accidental involvement in history has been kept silent until her revelation at her birthday party: She was the secretary who took the original notes on the ballistic expert's evaluation of the Zapruder film after it had been bought by her employer, Life Magazine. She knows what no one else outside of government knew, that the public never saw the original film, which conclusively proved the placement of a second shooter on the grassy knoll. Her revelation of this and other surprises breaks her over thirty-year silence. Interspersed between the announcements and reactions by her stunned adult daughter, son, and daughter-in-law are flashbacks to the harrowing backstory of this discovery and the ramifications of that fateful time.
The first thing you notice about this production is the creative way that Mr. Wiener, scenic designer Jeff Thomson and lighting designer Paul A. Black have been able to smoothly transition between then and now. Isolation lighting, inventive flying flats, and knowing glances back to Morgan Hallett's younger Lynette by the regretful Cathy Dresbach as the current day Lynette make for powerful juxtapositions. Without this smoothness and ability to link, the script would lose quite a bit of power. Mr. Wiener also keeps the actors moving forward in a driven race from threatening shadows.
Ms. Dresbach does a good job of giving us a woman bursting with the need to reveal an awful secret. However, it's Ms. Hallett that is able to cover the most ground with her character. Filled initially with unworried joy, we watch her react to the awful revelation of the film and then morph into a woman whose fears join with her drive to succeed to clash against the expectations of her era. She does an excellent job exploring this character arc, convincingly collapsing into a paranoiac fear of her life and identity.
Ben Tyler's portrayal of the paternal boss and editor at the ironically named Life, Graham, is a heartbreaking tour de force. It's a testament to his emotional connection with Ms. Hallett that one of the most powerful moments is their pained hugging near the end of the show. Angela Calabrasi is solid, though she seems more about presenting twitches and rat-a-tatting her lines than really embodying the inherited emotional mess of her character, Lynette's daughter Stephanie. Where Ms. Hallett develops her ticks as the play progresses, Ms. Calabrasi affects hers. Christian Miller impresses as the controlling son Ray, discovering shades in a very stark character. Vocally, there isn't a lot of difference between Julie Cotton's three characters, but there is a deeper understanding of those differences that transcends her vocal presentation.
Beyond the appropriate flying flats, Mr. Thomson has created a slyly ironic stationary set that hauntingly depicts the middle class fishbowl of suburbia. David Temby's sound design is fluid and filled with wonderfully ironic music choices that comment on the play throughout, while Connie Furr's costumes resonate with these two polar opposite eras. Manuela Needhammer's hair and makeup design is quite impressive in recalling both eras successfully.
Actors Theatre once more lives up to its level of presentation of Off Broadway offerings with this thoughtful reflection.