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The demise of Portland Rep has thrust Artists Repertory Theater into new prominence. ART is now second only to the spectacle barn, though it is clearly the city's leading theater artistically--a distinction it's earned with a decade of work. ART's move into the new Reiersgaard Theater fostered hope that the company's creativity--always tempered by the cramped Wilson Center--would explode into fresh inventiveness. Yet its first season has been a bitter disappointment. Starting with a dismal production of Albee's A Delicate Balance, which became a vehicle for some of the artistic council's vanity, the season declined further with a forgettable musical and a lackluster stab at a fascinating Australian play. Worse than just losing its way, ART seemed to be shirking its artistic responsibilities, allowing itself to degenerate into another safe house. But no longer. First planned for the 1996-97 season, Jon Kretzu's production of Jean Cocteau's Indiscretions was wisely shelved to première in the spacious new theater. Indiscretions is more than an assured and ingenious piece of theater; it should serve as the official reopening of an important company. The production also reveals Kretzu at the height of his directorial powers. In the past, Kretzu's intelligence has led him into laziness, where deep text work is forsaken for surface decor, shackling a play's action to a fire-sale of images. Though his work is memorable, it has suffered, on occasion, from a lack of intent. Kretzu has met his theatrical match with Cocteau, and his singular mask melds seamlessly with Cocteau's hermeticism and artifice. Indiscretions--the dull English rendering of Les Parents Terribles--was a departure for Cocteau, who wanted to incorporate his art and message into a less abstract and more familiar context. Inspired by his friend and fellow writer Raymond Radiguet, who challenged him to write in a traditional genre, Cocteau decided to explore the style of a boulevard comedy. Bringing substance to frivolity, Cocteau created a domestic drama of a family whose "life is falling sideways." The intimate relationship between a mother and son, which strains every other familial bond, is far from the prosaic kitchen-sink unities of post-war realism, and stands in stark contrast to Cocteau's other work. Indiscretions was both a success and a scandal that has maintained an unslackened power. Some critics have bemoaned Cocteau's brief abandonment of myth and poetry for an accessible style. One wishes selling out could be so brilliantly achieved today. Most of the play's action takes place in the cluttered bedroom of Yvonne, a near-invalid wallowing in drabbed dishevelment. Lodged from light, Yvonne's room, drenched in the madder red of wounds, takes on the appearance of a womb collapsing. The whole set seems carnous and suggests disorder, and it's not long before we realize that this is a meat cradle of pathology. Yvonne's life revolves around her son Michael, a young man who has thrived on his mother's smothering. Their intimate relationship has pushed everyone else to the margin of this room, including Yvonne's husband, George, a man of no importance, and her sister Leo, who lives with a punishing celibacy and who aches for George's touch. But life in this claustrophobic furnace of flesh is disrupted when Michael meets and falls in love with a young woman named Madeleine. Suddenly, Yvonne's strange hold on her son is lessened, which leads to shocking disclosures and plot twists. As Yvonne, Sharonlee McLean gives her best performance in ages as the clutching mother fast heading to seed. McLean captures both the humor and horror of Yvonne in a confident reading. As Michael, Nicholas Freeman--who has at last graduated from Portland Center Stage walk-on and is free of the stone-blind gaze and hand-hunting from last summer's McNally display--gives a vibrant performance. JoAnn Johnson is also back in good form as the scheming Leo. After her hoarse trilling and posturing in A Delicate Balance, Johnson has regained her expert comic timing. Michael Fisher-Welsh turns in another fine portrayal as the spoiled and ineffectual George, and Susan McDonald Maginn makes the perfect ingenue. Kretzu has also assembled an impressive team of designers. Tim Stapleton's scenic designs are the best seen anywhere this season. Biographical flourishes from Cocteau's life, some of which Cocteau supplies to the text, are cleverly incorporated into the fabric of the piece. Yvonne is modeled partly on his mother. George was the name of Cocteau's suicided father. Madeleine was the name of Cocteau's first girlfriend. There is so much of Cocteau layering Indiscretions, one critic called the piece a "Pirandellian game between the theater and life." It is Cocteau's possession by theater that is highlighted in the design. Cocteau called his love of theater the "Red-and-Gold sickness." Here Yvonne's room is both womb and stage, framed in a cracked proscenium arch complete with a theatrical frieze of gilt cherubs strung on umbilical cords. Yvonne's garb is also a reference to Cocteau's memories of his mother dressing for the theater: the dress of red velvet like loges, and jewels like a chandelier. Polley Bowen's costuming is excellent. Scott Stewart's lighting and Martin John Gallagher's sound all complement the audaciousness of Kretzu's production, which is as startling as a piece of art seen suddenly by match fire. |
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