June 3, 2005
THEATER BEAT
It is whimsy, not sadness, that fuels Sarah Ruhl's trifling,
occasionally touching chamber piece "Melancholy Play." Characters
with fairy-tale outlinesÑa tailor (Rob Helms), a hairdresser (Kristina Lear), a
nurse (Marilyn Dodds Frank), a shrink of "unspecified European"
extraction (Karl Wiedergott)Ñcircle the salon-like stage of the new Hayworth
Theatre, freely declaiming or singing their feelings with the stubbornly
self-involved candor of drama queens.
Their preferred emotional state is what one calls the
"necessary bodily humor" of melancholy. And their main devotion is to
Tilly (Polly Noonan), a swoony, free-spirited bank teller, newly arrived in
town, who embodies that "sexy, sad feeling" like no one else.
Until, suddenly one day, she doesn't.
Perhaps the play's singular smiling perversity explains why this
central transformationÑfrom Tilly's ostensible mania for depression to her
subsequent bursting bubblinessÑbarely registers. In director Chris Fields'
sparkling, knowing production, it's all a put-on, and the difference between
sad Tilly and happy Tilly is measured in volume, not emotional range.
The cast essays this candy-colored worldÑthe sort of place in
which adults at a birthday party play duck-duck-gooseÑwith brittle earnestness
and a delicate, nearly musical sense of timing. An onstage cellist (Joseph
Mendoes) sits in a tux under a blue light and saws away passionately, providing
both underscoring and accompaniment for composer Michael Roth's mock-chorales.
A later song memorably lists items that can trigger the dark moods
of the title: windows, smells, slanting afternoon light. If Ruhl's play
actually evoked rather than recited even a moment of genuine heartsickness, we
might feel something more than bemused.
"Melancholy Play," Echo Theatre Company at the
Hayworth Theatre, 643 Carondelet St., Los Angeles. 8 p.m. Fridays and
Saturdays, 7 p.m. Sundays. Ends June 19. $15 and $20. (800) 413-8669 or
www.echotheatrecompany.com. Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes.