Another Day on Willow Street
“Why try something new when we already know what we like?” asks the conservative character in Compass Rose’s current production, Another Day On Willow Street.
“Because,” says founding artistic director Lucinda Merry-Browne, “the future of theater depends on new works.”
So Annapolis audiences are the first ever to see this new work by acclaimed playwright, author and actor Frank Anthony Polito. Chosen for its unique structure and strong themes, this edgy drama about two relationships in crisis leading up to the 9/11 terrorist attacks considers the themes of sacrifice and commitment against a backdrop of domestic stress, isolation and jealousy.
Ian (Ric Andersen) and Stacy (Renata Plecha) have it all: a townhome on Willow Street, his Wall Street banking career and her early retirement from publishing to have their baby. Only problem is, she’s not ready and he’s too busy enjoying his role as sole breadwinner to indulge her fears. Going stir-crazy at home, she makes a friend at the park. Mark (Jonathan Lee Taylor) is a struggling actor who rents the studio next door and is living as a geographic bachelor separated from his love, Paul (Anthony Bosco), a Boston-based lawyer. Paul, who is nursing his dying mother, is pressuring Mark to help him fulfill her dying wish to see them married. Only problem is, Mark still hasn’t come out to his parents.
There are a lot of phone calls and domestic squalls, crossed signals and crossed paths between unacquainted neighbors, Starbucks and even some gratuitous gay phone sex as each couple hashes out the same issues in parallel conversations that echo each other. The main message, stated twice, is that, “people put things off and put things off and put things off only to realize their lives are over.” Not an original thought, but one worth repeating.
Set and lighting are minimal, characters clichéd and dialogue circular. Yet there is some strong acting. Most notable are Bosco and Taylor, both Equity actors who were cast as last minute replacements with just one week to learn the show. Each fleshes out his role, to the extent the script allows, with finesse. Plecha, last seen as the nurse in Compass Rose’s Romeo and Juliet, is also convincing as the reluctant housewife.
However, Andersen, last seen as Bob Ewell in Compass Rose’s To Kill a Mockingbird, is wooden and one-dimensional. There is more chemistry between Stacy and the gay neighbor than there is between husband and wife.
From a technical perspective, the blocking is awkward, often requiring downstage actors to turn their backs on the audience to carry on conversations with those upstage.
Other problems come with the script. Characters’ names are barely used the first half of the show, making it hard to identify them. The play has a general flatness, and the roller-coaster of a pseudo dramatic arc culminates in a confusing climax, tidy resolution and abrupt ending.
This is no instant classic, but it will make you think about the transience of life and the fragility of love.
Adult themes make this show inappropriate for ages under 16, and runtime is advertised as 75 minutes with no intermission, yet opening night ran an extra 15 minutes.