The Ensemble Theatre's The Swan at Theatre
(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 6/9/00
(out of )I have heard mention of Elizabeth Egloff's The Swan as a desired production for The Ensemble Theatre for some time now. I'd heard about its dreamlike qualities and magical theme. Finally, after four years, David Vining is directing this pet project, and all I can wonder is why. It's not a terrible script, or a bad production, but it certainly doesn't feel like something a talented group of people would have been dreaming of producing for four years.
During a stormy night in Nebraska, a swan awakens Dora, a young woman with clinging qualities and a streak of bad luck, when he slams into her patio doors. She takes in the wounded bird, and both her and her married boyfriend, Kevin, seem surprisingly unfazed when he transforms into a human. She names him Bill, and attempts to bring out the human qualities of this bird. She discovers that he is deeply in love with her. This causes conflict with the boyfriend, and the evening escalates into a battle of realities.
For sure, there are some tender and emotionally stirring moments in the script. It's just that it takes a long time getting from place to place, and offers a central female character whose double-wide ways and many ditzy qualities are not exactly endearing. Her adulterous beau, too, isn't exactly a cuddly teddy bear. These are two pretty realistic people thrown into a magical setting, but they're not the kind of people many would necessarily want leading them on a fairytale journey. The character that we as an audience feel genuinely toward is poor Bill. He wants so much to be human and loved by Dora, and struggles so hard to realize both, that you just wish Dora were a little more worthy of his desperate attempt.
Of course, this feeling might partially be the fault of director Vining and his actress, DeAnna Robbins. Oddly enough, while the two men play realistically (as realistically as a swan-transformed-into-a-man can), there is a more presentational style behind Robbins' Dora. As staged, it feels wrong that Robbins is not as completely in the moment as her fellow actors. She acts as though she is aware of the audience, and her vocal qualities are not as realistic as Mike Prindiville's Kevin and Ken Matthews Bill. Judging from her character's circumstances, it seems odd that she should not be the one most pinned in reality, thus making her interactions with Bill and the transformations of the second act that much more poignant. When caught up in the action that leads to the script's odd climax, though, Ms. Robbins finally comes through.
Mr. Prindiville's offerings don't suffer from problems of reality as much as from a slight lack of focus. While he is appropriately confused and bullying, the power of his violence, both in love and in jealousy, never completely embrace or communicate this depth of emotion.
The strength of this play is in Mr. Matthews' deeply compelling and obviously well-researched offering of swan Bill, as he fully invests himself in the physicalizations and emotional longings of his character. From his perfectly considered stance to his touchingly halting word poems of love, Mr. Matthews' performance is heartbreaking.
Jeff Thomson's scenic design is well done. He recreates the drab living room and kitchen of Dora's oppressively white house successfully, although problems with the door sometimes impeded the performance. Claude N. Pensis' lighting transitioned smoothly between drab reality and magical realms well. Benjamin Monrad's well-handled sound design, and Dawn McDonald's costumes also added great and professional support to the production.
If there's ever a compelling reason to see this somewhat disappointing production, it is a mix of Mr. Matthew's exceptional performance and the long-in-coming magic of the last ten minutes. While not enough to completely compensate for the dragging moments that surround them, these two elements still bring it to the level of an enjoyable evening of theatre.
Production Details:
The Swan by Elizabeth Egloff
The Ensemble Theatre
Phoenix Theatre's Little Theatre, Phoenix
(602) 254-2151
June 9th - 25th, 2000