“Long” is the first adjective that comes to mind when one thinks of Nomadic Theatre’s final production of the season, Charles L. Mee’s Summertime. Director Kristin Brudy (CAS ‘06) attempts to string a seemingly endless series of nonsequiturs together under the larger theme of love, but the result is not very enjoyable.
Set in Martha’s Vineyard, Summertime has a plot too unfocused for easy summary. James, played uncomfortably by Adam Aquirre (CAS ‘06), asks Tessa, fluidly played by Ali Zatta (CAS ‘07), to translate some photo captions from English into Italian and ends up unrealistically falling in love with her. Unfortunately for the future of their relationship, not to mention the audience, Tessa and her family have a tangled web of dysfunctional relationships.
Both Tessa and her mother Maria, played by Jen Rogers (CAS ‘06), entertain advances by the French Francois, played by Hunter Styles (CAS ‘08). Styles gives a good performance as a questionable Casanova, but Rogers seems to be trying too hard and as a result the scenes between Francois and Tessa have more sparks than those between him and Maria.
For most of the play Maria’s passive husband Frank, played by Ian Fahey (CAS ‘07), is more interested in his lover Edmund, played by Max Coffman (SFS ‘05), than in his wife. Where Coffman is irksome, Fahey is nothing but likable, though more often the audience feels sorry for him because of the state of his relationships. Unfortunately most of his scenes don’t come until the dreadfully slow second act, when there’s little reason to care about anything happening on stage.
As the S&M pizza man Bob, first time Nomadic actor Vernon Lyons (CAS ‘05) does an admirable job. He’s exciting to watch and even his outlandish stories seem real, but the sadism in his character doesn’t seem to mesh with the overall feel of the play. Act I ends with a large melee that is more comical than effective. These moments of violence detract from the play and prevent it from reaching any sensible conclusions.
Like the relationships in the play, scenic designer Felicia Barr’s (CAS ‘08) set is unconventional. The audience flanks the long rectangular stage on two sides; everything is washed in bright colors. Along with Elizabeth Vinci’s (SFS ‘06) helpful lighting design, it is the technical aspects of this show that are most successful. It takes much more than backstage magic to create a good play, though.
Nowhere is this more apparent than in the second act. Unlike the first act, there is little momentum to make the chaos seem compelling and countless monologues bog things down. The one high point is the appearance of the family’s wacky lesbian neighbors, played by Sophie Davis (CAS ‘06) and Kerry Gibbons (CAS ‘05). Here we are finally presented with two real people. The bantering between the two is droll because it’s down to earth.
The actors do try their best throughout the second act, and the play’s ending is very poignant, almost beautiful thanks to the staging and Fahey’s performance. But it can’t justify the play’s first two and a half hours. In fact, lack of justification is the big problem with the script. There’s no reason to have this many things going on and any message, if there is one, gets lost in the jumble of superfluous storylines and caricatured roles.
Director Kristin Brudy does put up a valiant fight against the array of flaws in Mee’s script, but in the end she and her cast are overcome. There are simply too many unnecessary scenes, lines, and ideas for the play to be successful. If you’re looking for sunny skies, good times and warm weather, stay away from Summertime.
