Date: Fri 13-Nov-1998

Publication: Bee

Author: CAROLL

Quick Words:

Skylight-theatre-April

Full Text:

THEATRE REVIEW: STW's Latest Is Intellectually Interesting

(with cut)

By June April

STAMFORD -- Skylight won the Olivier Award for the Best Play in London in 1995

and the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for 1996-97 for Best Foreign Play.

Its author, the playwright David Hare, will see his newest creation, The Blue

Room , open for previews November 27 for a limited run engagement at the Cort

Theater in Manhattan.

Watching the current production of Skylight at Stamford TheatreWorks, this

reviewer felt like a spectator. My definition of an outstanding production

necessitates being sucked into the story, and this just didn't happen. The

acting was credible, even absorbing and periodically brilliant, but never

consistent, neither in accents nor characterizations.

Deirdre Madigan is a moving and sensitive actor who has been excellent in all

the productions this reviewer has ever watched her in. This time she seemed

tense and forced with her portrayal of Kyra Hollis, a tormented woman who

seeks fulfillment through educating economically deprived children.

Is she intentionally subjecting herself to a somewhat masochistic lifestyle to

punish herself for betraying her friend? Or are her values truly one of

spartan calling, with only temporal relationships sufficing? The resolution of

understanding her character was never realized, plus most of Ms Madigan's

English accent, which was spot-on in the first half, was only spottily heard

in the second half of the play.

Skylight is about a woman who died of cancer and the effect her death has on

her husband, their teenage son, and the young woman who lived in their home

and worked with the husband in his restaurant business. It's all complicated

by the fact that the young woman, Kyra, and the husband, Tom Sergeant, have an

affair that has gone on for six years.

As Kyra promised Tom when the tryst started, "If your wife ever finds out, I'm

out of here." (That is not a verbatim sentence, but the essence of the young

lady's stance.)

The deceased wife is the fourth actor in this play, and her presence is strong

and real. Skylight reminds one a little of the Japanese classic Rashamon , in

that each of the three characters is relating/living their grief and guilt

from vastly different perceptions.

From that viewpoint, this play was intellectually interesting. It also

addressed values within the English class system, and the exploration of the

world of business ethics.

Portraying the bewildered and grief-stricken son Edward Sergeant, Bill Dawes

offers an energetic and honest characterization.

As his controlling father, Paul Falzone ping-pongs between occasional

sensitivity and almost brutal rage. Somehow none of the characters really seem

to connect, they just keep trying to and act at communicating what is within

them.

There's a rather interesting line in the beginning of the play: "Once they're

dead they keep changing..." It is one aspect of the play that stays with this

reviewer's thoughts and gives pause to the consideration of how the human mind

creates its own psychological world.

This reviewer was also somewhat bemused with the ending of Skylight . It felt

like an afterthought, tossed in to give the play a happy ending.

But the effect, personally, was that it lacked credibility and Kyra's

character seemed unduly effervescent. 'Tis a conundrum that a theatergoer

should experience and determine for himself.

The scenic design at STW is always terrific, and Andre Durette created a bleak

and cold feeling apartment for this production. Matthew G. Zelkowitz' lighting

heightened the impact of the shabby environment. The smells of the cooking

food and the use of running water added a further positive dimension to the

production.

( Skylight plays through November 22. Stamford TheatreWorks is at the corner

of Strawberry Hill Avenue and Fifth Street in Stamford, on the campus of

Sacred Heart Academy. For tickets and further information, call 359-4414.)