Last week Steve Martin’s “WASP,” directed by Greg Malen ’07, went up in the ’92 Theater. “WASP” is a one-act look at the archetype of the “normal” suburban family. Martin is a funny man, so this of course means a comedy mocking all the suburban cliches we’ve come to know and love: casual racism, alcohol-prone housewives, Creationism, and an over-fondness for Jell-o molds and golf. But Martin is also a man with a poetic ear, and he gives his play a poetic heart. While the characters are all archetypes of societal roles, they give us sympathetic insights into the people who fill those roles rather than just mocking the desire to do so.
The play does not have a guiding narrative, but serves rather as a surreal slice-of-life. The main characters do not have names, addressing each other as Mom (Lea Jacobs ’05), Dad (Chris White ’06), Son (Kieran Kredell ’08) and Sis (Sara Maeder ’08). This reflects not how they are presented to the audience, but rather how they define themselves, stretching and shrinking themselves to fit their ideals. Their surface relationships are as you expect: Dad is master of the house, a house that physically quakes when he is angry. Mom is unappreciated yet a weepy upholder of the status quo. Son and Sis are preoccupied with a bike and a boy, respectively, and while Son is expected to work a job and finish his meals and erect an eight-story building, nothing much is expected of Sis.
But there is more. Dad may head the family, but he is excluded from much of it. On Christmas Day after presents are opened he leaves for work. The rest of the family, once sure he’s gone, break into British accents and call upon their butler Roger (Anthony Nikolchev ’08), who for this moment anyway seems to exist. Throughout the play Mom has conversations with an omniscient Voice (the always able Janene Podesta ’05) who eventually comes into the living room for coffee and cake. She not only tells Mom that sex is the only reason people pair up, but gives speeches on Dad’s struggle to love Mom without drowning in need, and paints a tragically bittersweet picture of what would happen should Mom leave him.
Everything here is hyperbolized, and Malen seamlessly presents the characters’ fantasies alongside their everyday reality. Sis and Dad both get to share their inner monologues. At choir practice, Sis fantasizes about giving birth to and later marrying Jesus. At the end of the play, Dad interrupts his own golf story (during which his family wait for their cues to laugh uproariously) to ask the Voices for counsel. Unlike with Mom, no Voices respond and he is left on his own. He turns his focus to Mom and tells us his stiff-upper-lip tale of stifled desire, something he cannot yield to because a provider must be able to stand on his own. In the end the story is not just about WASPs, but about a universal struggle to take shelter in societal roles. The characters are aware of the bargain they’ve made, giving up freedom and passion for security. Martin leaves open the possibility that Son and Sis might be able to live differently, to at least make different compromises. The play does not look down on the characters, but in the end admires their double-consciousness, their ability to fully live their roles while aware that they are prescribed categories.
Malen did an excellent job of bringing out the play’s poetry as well as its humor. The scene that most fully demonstrated both was the one between Son and Premier (Nikolchev), Son’s green, four-armed alien visitor who climbs through the window when contacted by homemade radio. Son contacts him just after a talk with Dad, who explains that his approval is contingent upon Son’s future earnings, and Premier agrees to impart to him The Vision. The Vision is Premier’s message from Son’s future, a description of a woman whom Son will one day love passionately, and then lose. The Vision is like a drug to Son, getting him through his petty existence, bringing him to his knees in that classic combination of ecstasy and pain. Kredell and Nikolchev both do an excellent job, as does Premier’s silver and green costume. All the costumes, designed by Judith Klausner ’07, are spot-on, both in creativity and in fitting the archetypes.
Malen managed to assemble an excellent cast. His frosh actors Nikolchev, Kredell and Maeder, can all expect healthy acting careers over the next four years. Nikolchev made his characters completely distinct, not just through the aid of costume and make-up but through very specific character adjustments. Kredell pulled off both Son’s youthfulness and his secret maturity, and Maeder looked completely at ease in Sis’s charming delusion. Chris White was, well, Chris White: his trademark hearty, booming voice gave Dad the perfect combination of authority and the kind of likeability that has a threat lurking behind it. It is everyone’s job to like Dad, and to seek his approval: doing otherwise would have dire consequences.
Malen also chose to stage the show in thrust, with the audience surrounding the actors on three sides. The audience was very close to the stage, almost on top of the actors, which while often a dicey move, here provided an important intimacy. Malen understood that this play is about bringing the audience inside the characters’ lives.
Max Baehr’s [’07] set, a yellow house-shaped back wall, did the job of suggesting picket-fence normality. Set changes were a bit lugubrious; had more objects been left on stage it not only would have sped things up but perhaps created a nice layering effect. Jeni Morrison ’07 made an auspicious light design debut, and the sometimes-dim lighting on scenes helped rather than hindered, creating a shadowy and mysterious effect on the Premier scene without actually obscuring the actors.
All in all, Malen created a sturdy production that did justice to a good script that is more complex than it seems. It provided a nice vehicle for the older actors and an excellent coming-out for first-time actors, designers, and a first-time director. Malen served his cast, his text and his audience quite well, and gave us the much-needed combination of something to laugh about and something to think about.
“WASP” by Steve Martin; directed by Greg Malen ’07; stage manager Owen Roberts ’07; light design by Jeni Morrison ’07; set design by Max Baehr ’07; costumes by Judith Klausner ’07; props by Jenine Almahdi ’07; sound design by Owen Roberts ’07.
WITH Lea Jacobs ’05 (MOM), Kieran Kredell ’08 (SON), Sara Maeder ’08 (SIS) Anthony Nikolchev ’08 (PREMIER, ROGER), Janene Podesta ’05 (FEMALE VOICE, CHOIRMASTER), Chris White ’06 (DAD).
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