Theater Arts' plays offer intellectual entertainment

There are so many things that could have gone wrong with Theatre Arts' latest production. Combining The Dumb Waiter and The Actor's Nightmare, two unrelated one-act plays, flirts with possibilities ranging from hokey to simply incomprehensible. But Director Chris McQuistin seems to know when less is more, and the result is a successful balance of a traditional production and an experimental concept. To a surprisingly small extent, the two plays are woven together into one, with parts of Harold Pinter's The Dumb Waiter finding their way into Christopher Durang's The Actor's Nightmare. This is wisely sparse. It allows each play to be performed with integrity, preserving the spirit of the playwrights' original intentions. The idea of combining them as one unified work is more of a suggestion than a radical revision of either play. For example, at one point in The Actor's Nightmare, the set becomes the set we had seen earlier in The Dumb Waiter. This makes sense, since Nightmare is about an actor who does not know who he is or what play he is supposed to be in, and we see characters from all different famous plays come on and off. It is logical that the The Dumb Waiter might be one of the plays in the protagonist's nightmare, so the combination does not contort Durang's play beyond its original meaning. But, at the same time, this adds an extra dimension to the experience of this production, since it prompts the audience to speculate about the connection between the two plays. Thematic elements of each play are given a new resonance they never would have had in individual performance. The beauty of McQuistin's concept is that, with just the tiniest cues from the production, each audience member creates this new dimension for his or her self. In this, he raises questions about the boundaries and definitions of theater. What is the role of the audience in the theatrical experience? To what extent can the experience be shaped by each individual as he or she watches it? The actors' performances also demonstrate the production's sophistication – particularly in The Dumb Waiter. Performances by Brian Turnbaugh and Ted Leavengood show the utmost attention to detail and understanding of their characters. Both actors play each individual moment fully and specifically. This specificity is the most impressive aspect of their performances. Their performances are rich with the detail of each thought and activity of their characters as they move from one decision to the next. To an active and attentive viewer, this is especially satisfying. The one persistent problem is that their performances are too much the product of intellectual instead of emotional work. The thorough understanding of each line and a commitment to conveying this understanding fully to the audience is clear. However, one never stops feeling that the actors were re-enacting their experiences instead of experiencing them for the first time on stage. But this is never a glaring flaw, and does not detract from the sensibility of the material itself. The Actor's Nightmare is performed with the proper dryness of wit and deadpan humor to bring Durang's bizarre sense of comedy to life. This half of the production adds three actresses to the cast, all of whom show meticulous skill as comedians. Marcie Levine has a particularly wonderful balance of wry humor and all out hamming, and Leavengood returns as a hilarious and frustrated Horatio from Hamlet. At first, the seemingly gratuitous, skit-like humor of The Actor's Nightmare is a welcome relief from the intellectual demands of Pinter's play. But the thematic connections of the two plays creeps up on you as Nightmare progresses, finally creating a theatrical experience which is truly original. This production asks for a degree of intellectual energy from its audience -- but definitely give it that energy. Like cold fusion, you get more out than you put in. The show will run tonight through Saturday. Tickets can be bought on Locust Walk for $5.