Review: 'Say Goodnight, Gracie'
By Mark Collins Camera Theater Critic
Thursday, March 13, 2008
LAFAYETTE -- Ah, baby boomers. We might be more interesting if we just didn't find ourselves so interesting.
Cheap shot, maybe. But that's the problem with Ralph Pape's 1978 play "Say Goodnight, Gracie."
The play is set during one evening during the Bicentennial year, 1976. Five people gather in a small New York apartment, readying to go to a 10-year high school reunion. Each of them is 28 years old.
With the reunion on tap, they spend a lot of time reminiscing. One wishes he hadn't missed Woodstock, another remembers the Cuban Missile Crisis and the calming presence of TV journalist Edward R. Murrow, who soothed her during her childhood.
They also smoke pot and fall asleep, when they're not busy talking about their own (supposedly) fascinating lives.
It's dawning on them that their youth is behind them. Yet they're not quite ready to fully take on the responsibilities of adulthood. Some lament they haven't lived up to the great things they were going to do.
Besides one particularly self-involved character not wanting to go to the reunion -- he's an actor who's had a bad day -- there's no conflict here. Without real conflict, the story's got no place to go. So the poignancy "Gracie" reaches for in its final moment is way beyond its grasp.
It works as a nostalgic laundry list of bygone pop-culture references, but not much more.
Still, despite the tepid material, Theater Company of Lafayette's production of "Gracie," directed by Ian Gerber, manages to charm. That's thanks in large part to Matt Ellison and Alexandria St. Aubin's performances as groovy boyfriend/girlfriend Bobby and Catherine.
Ellison, dressed like a young David Crosby, plays the role with abandon. He's loose and in the moment, and doesn't need jokes written into his character's dialogue to be funny.
St. Aubin, all focus and serenity, is the perfect foil to Ellison's sprawling energy.
The entire cast makes the pot-smoking scene a memorable one. Like, you get the munchies even sitting in the audience.
Sarah Spencer's set is wonderfully detailed, down to the wooden tennis racket, 8-track tapes, transcendental meditation book and rabbit-ears TV antenna.
It all provides an amusing peek 30 years back in time. Certainly, the nostalgia factor will appeal to some. And perhaps younger generations will find the pre-AIDS, pre-hip-hop, pre-9/11 world of interest.
But the play is confounding. It's tied to a time period but doesn't offer much insight into the era beyond the superficial artifacts. Things changed forever in the 1960s. Too bad these characters are too self-absorbed to have anything of interest to say about that.
Contact Camera Theater Critic Mark Collins at 303-473-1369 or BDCTheater@comcast.net.