Fifth of July by Lanford Wilson. Directed by Terry Kinney.
Reviewed by J. Peter Bergman
"We were very tired, we were very merry..."
Elizabeth Franz & Shane McRae: photo: T. Charles Erickson
When youth wears out early it leaves behind the stench of middle-age worn too early and held too high. Two of the men in Lanford Wilson’s family comedy, set in 1977, have reached that plateau and neither of them realizes it. Once best friends, once almost lovers in those easy, promiscuous days at Berkeley when the Vietnam War raged onward and the peace and love movement snarled and snapped at the news cameras for every photo-op, these two men have moved on and neither of them sees just how far and how dangerously differently that time between has made them. One of them, Kenneth Talley, Jr. is the host of a 4th of July celebration in his ancestral home in Lebanon, Missouri. The other, John Landis, with his wanton wife, is his guest.
If that was the story we’d be home free in this triumphant Wilson play being given a most worthwhile production at the Williamstown Theatre Festival, but that is not the story. With six other characters involved, the story is a much bigger one, a much more personal one. These two men have partners and for better or worse, those partners have stories, too. Gwen Landis is wealthy, whacked out, wasted and wanting an identity, a career, to present as her self. Jed Jenkins is gardening his heart out to save his heart from breaking at the rejection he gets from his lover, Kenneth.
Ken’s sister June is courting her own daughter, raised by relatives, trying to create a mother/daughter relationship that will make sense and have resonance. Shirley Talley, 13 going on 21, needs to prove to someone, almost anyone, that she is not just a girl, but a special girl, one with a touch of genius, destined for great things and, then, there is Sally Friedman, nee Talley: Sally Talley. Heroine of the next play Wilson wrote, Sally Talley who marries Matt Friedman, she is incidentally the center of this play too, although not the intended center. But there is that about her which makes her hold center stage, even from far off stage right. Sally is the story.
In Terry Kinney’s beautifully constructed production, on a curiously wonderful set designed by David Gallo, Sally moves inexorably into the center square. Played with an extraordinary tenderness and a glorious smile by Elizabeth Franz, Sally focuses for all the others their problems and their solutions. Sometimes with a line, sometimes with a look or a gesture, Franz becomes that magic wand every family craves to solve their problems. Less Auntie Mame and more Dolly Levi, she craftily maneuvers people into alignments. Franz has a voice that melts sugar and expressive eyes that bring tears to your own without half trying. The one thing she never convincingly portrays is frailty. Heading for a retirement community, fainting at a funeral, Franz’s Sally seems rather destined to ride naked on a white horse down Main Street in a parade. To watch this actress bring to vivid life the older version of the heroine in Wilson’s next play, "Talley’s Folly," is to give witness to what is greatest in the art of the theater.
Luckily for her and for us she is surrounded by actors who can bring fine qualities to their roles, acting a bit harder, a bit better, perhaps for her presence in their company. Shane McRae is wonderful, natural, bitter and bittersweet as Kenneth Talley. A character who thrives on rationale, McRae adds a dimension of masculinity tempered by fragility to the part. It is easy to understand his love for Noah Bean’s Jed. Bean is gorgeous and strong and manly, nothing forced, nothing acted. He is supportive of his partner and Bean plays that for all it is worth, scooping him up in his arms when necessary, standing devotedly behind him when that’s best for Kenneth. The ease and naturalness of the relationship portrayed in this play’s most curious sensitivity is remarkable. Remember that this is 1977, played in 1978. It almost makes you want to move to this town.
Kally Duling makes Shirley Talley into the perfect mouthpiece, the correct eyes for Wilson. In some bizarre way, this play is something very real, for Shirley sees what Wilson writes and sometimes she speaks the words he might have uttered at her age. Her mother, June, is played by Kellie Overbey in a somewhat lackadaisical manner. A character somehow out of step with her family, her contemporaries and her own child, she is played that way and her presence adds little to the production’s success. Luckily she doesn’t detract from it either.
John and Gwen are played by David Wilson Barnes and Jennifer Mudge. Loud, vibrant, motivated to move and carry-on, these two actors assume every aspect of their husband and wife counterparts and make us both love and resent them. Too much comes too easily for Gwen and we see that in every movement Mudge gives to her, from a simple kick-back of her heels to a table leap, to a toss-down of a towel, reality. She’s terrific, in a word. Barnes is almost her equal, but for a long moment, when John is confronted with his own shaky sexuality, Barnes seems to want to back-burner this. It is the one weak moment in the cast’s performances and Kinney may be at fault here, but it’s hard to know for sure.
The Landis’ friend and songwriter, a stranger to almost everyone, is played with a luscious diffidence by Danny Deferrari.
The production looks right, thanks in part to the costumes designed by Sarah J. Holden and the lighting by David Weiner. Words sometimes got gobbled up by subtle sound effects but one thing remains clear: this is Sally Friedman’s play, and as she goes about being Sally in her finest Sally way, Sally claims her rightful position in the hierarchy of family positions.
Fifth of July plays through August 22 on the Williamstown Theatre Company’s Main Stage, located at 1000 Main Street in Williamstown, MA. For information and tickets contact the box office at 413-597-3400.
Danny Deferrari, Kally Duling, David Wilson Barnes, Noah Bean & Shane McRae; photo: T. Charles Erickson
Noah Bean and Shane McRae; photo: T. Charles Erickson