Veronica's Room
The Connection Review
THEATER
Elden Street Players Offers Bizarre Tale
By Brad Hathaway
The Connection
The Connection
June 13-19, 2001
The Elden Street Players' new production of the fascinating psycho-mystery
play "Veronica's Room" sets you up and pulls you in for a thoroughly
satisfying journey into the bizarre. The intermission occurs just half an hour
into the evening after a first act that seems to have a number of weaknesses.
Only during the second act do you discover that most of those weaknesses are, in
fact, setups for intriguing and unexpected developments, as what seemed to be a
fairly straightforward story turns complex, convoluted and compelling.
Not to give away too much of the intriguing plot, the play involves a man, a
woman, and a young man and a girl of college age. The setup involves a request
by the older couple to the younger girl for help with a family problem. But
think of a mixture of "Rosemary's Baby" and "The Stepford
Wives." That mixture isn't too surprising, given the fact that Ira Levin
wrote both of them and this play. He's been shocking and entertaining people
with his books, his movies and his plays since 1954 ("A Kiss Before
Dying").
This production is directed by Bruce Folmer with a clean, uncomplicated,
"just tell the story" approach, which is just right for this tightly
plotted piece. He keeps his cast and crew from falling for the temptation to
embellish beyond what Levin put in his script, and as a result, the show works
beautifully. Of course, it helps that the stronger members of the cast
have the most important roles.
Key to the success of the evening is the work of Mary-Anne Sullivan as
"The Woman" in her first performance with the Elden Street Players.
The progression of her character throughout the play requires a measured
transition from early restraint and later bravado, and Sullivan holds back just
enough energy in the early going to make her transitions mesmerizing.
Elden Street veteran Al Fetske matches Sullivan's transitional impact well,
while another Elden Street first-timer, Kate Ranta, gets both the innocent-youth
and the terrified-victim aspects of her role just right. Only newcomer Scott
Reichert seems a bit wooden, but the script gives the least well-defined set of
motivations to his character, "The Young Man." (I guess in 1982,
when this play was written, college-age males were "young men, while
college-age females were "girls.")
A nicely detailed set of and for "Veronica's Room" is credited to
"the committee" in the program, but that detailing was Amanda de
Donna's work.
Just who came up with the slight breeze blowing the curtain in the stage-left
window I don't know, but it is a very nice touch. Les Zidel, fresh from his
impressive effort on Port City Playhouse's "The Twilight of the Golds,"
lit this show. Whether the absence of bulbs in the on-set lamps, which are
turned on and off by actors, was a lighting-design or set-design lapse, I can' t
tell. But it was just a momentary distraction in an absorbing evening.
"Veronica's Room" contains brief nudity and material not suitable
for children. It plays Friday-Sunday through June 30 at the Industrial Strength
Theater, 269 Sunset Business Park Drive in Herndon. Tickets are $l0-$12. Call
703-481-5930.
Cast
The Man - Al Fetske
The Girl - Kate Ranta
The Young Man - Scott Reichert
The Woman - Mary-Anne Sullivan
Director - Bruce Follmer
Producer - John Strycharske
Stage Manager - Anne Franklin
Set Design -Mike Loughnane
ŠThe Connection 2001
Reprinted by permission from The Connection.
