THEATER | It's easier said than done to suspend contemporary attitudes for Theatre in the Round's "Indian Blood," set in (fortunately) bygone days
Maggie Bearmon Pistner and Ben Stasny in Indian Blood. Photo ©Act One, Too, Inc., courtesy Theatre in the Round.
Family memories are entwined with the holiday season. A.R. Gurney's Indian Blood is the playwright's autobiographical remembrance of his teenage rebellion during Christmas 1946 in Buffalo, New York in an upper-class WASP family. Director Lynn Musgrave, a 25-year veteran of Theatre in the Round, keeps the pace crisp. Doing double duty as sound designer, she perfectly evokes 1940s radio drama sound effects sound effects coupled with Big Band music.
Gurney's alter-ego Eddie (Ben Stasny), a wise-cracking 16-year-old, gets suspended from his prep school for a prank, having been turned in by his envious, poor-relation cousin Lambert (Andrew Stephan). He's bombarded by constant admonitions and rules from his dad, Harvey (Rob Frankel) while his mother Jane (Tina Frederickson) is an implacable counterweight of affectionate dry wit. The doyenne grandmother (Maggie Bearmon Pistner) is a imperious hypochondriac doling out small favors. Grandfather (Charles Torrey) is the surprisingly introspective banker, who one wishes had more stage time. Everyone converges at Christmas dinner with Uncle Paul (David Coral), a "confirmed bachelor" acting like an overgrown frat boy. (Coral doubles as the dour principal at the play's beginning.) Colleen Barret juggles three supporting characters: a Betty Boop secretary, a neighbor, and the Irish maid Annie.
| indian blood, playing through december 13 at theatre in the round. for tickets ($20) and information, see theatreintheround.org. |
The actors are energetic, but they're saddled with an awful script.
Why the title Indian Blood in the context of this wealthy white family? It's the mantra-like "explanation" Eddie regularly repeats for his various shenanigans. He blames his "Seneca tribal ancestors" for every social infraction and says that his cousin's "enemy tribe" blood accounts for their irritating brawls. In a young child this fantasy might have some charm, but not in a manipulative teenager whose racial attitudes are echoed by his father's uneasy comments about "Jews and Negroes." Irish servants are fair game for automatic contempt, too.
In the program, Musgrave's notes advise us to "suspend the modern filter known as 'political correctness.'" That's easier said than done. Even holiday lights' gaudy sheen can't conceal how relentless racism and class superiority suffuse this play. The playwright's nostalgia for a "simpler past" comes down to two hours of a stratified society where everyone knows their place and stays in it. My emotional response was a growing queasiness I could barely contain enough to return from intermission. Ultimately, Musgrave's warnings about "political correctness" only underscore the offensiveness of Gurney's petty longing for a privileged past.
There is one character of depth: Grandfather has premonitions of what the prosperous city of Buffalo, bustling on the Erie Canal and railroads, with its symphony and Broadway previews will become 50 years later: a bypassed, hollowed-out industrial shell. There's a beautiful elegiac feeling about Torrey's performance, but his best moments come too late in the play to salvage it. He makes a revelation to Eddie that should be a "moment of truth" that matures Eddie—but, it's too little too late. Indian Blood is the coal in the stocking of this year's holiday theater.
| This event is featured in the Daily Planet's complete guide to holiday theater. Throughout the holiday season, the guide will be updated with links to new Daily Planet reviews—so you know who's been naughty and who's been nice. |
Theatre in the Round
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Lydia Howell (email lydia@tcdailyplanet.net), a winner of the 2007 Premack Award for Public Interest Journalism, is a Minneapolis independent journalist writing for various newspapers.
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Comments
This much more of a satire than a holiday show
I doubt that this reviewer payed attention to the play at all. For one thing, the reviewer got some of his details wrong. For one, Eddie didn't get suspended for a prank- it was for drawing a lewed picture (very different from a prank). And they didn't go to his Uncle's for the party, they went to his grandmothers (where the Uncle was present).
And as for the political corectness, may I point out to the reviewer: This is a satire. A political commentary, not a racist rant. This isn't a family holiday show, and should not be reviewed as such. I thought the play was hillarious, and apparently the reviewer was too offended. Musgrave's note was for a good reason- people who are too uptight for sometimes raunchy humor shouldn't see it.
I also find it funny that the reviewer points out so much that there are two actors who play multiple roles. She seems to forget that it's part of a recurring joke thoughout the play about the theatre being too cheap to hire actors.
I'd reccomend to all those who aren't easily offended to come and have a good laugh at this play. All the actors played their roles well and hillariously. The script was strong, the lighting was good and the sound design exceptional. And I went to theatre in the round for the first time seeing this, and was blown away by the spaces uniqueness, the great views and the closeness to the actors.
If it's too offensive for you... well, there's always a White Christmas...
A.R. Gurney
Ultimately every audience member takes his/her own opinion away from a performance and (usually) nothing anyone can say will change it. However, this reviewer should have done her homework. If she had, she would know that Indian Blood is definitely not "petty longing for a privileged past."
It is sentimental, yes. It's also a painfully (but funny) honest look at the family from whence he came. And that family produced a liberal progressive who's spent his life writing about uptight WASPs....warts and all.
I'm sure critics do some surfing before attending performances. Indian Blood has been prostively reveiwed across the country based upon what it is: an affectionate but honest look at the playwright's family. Even in liberal Greenwich Village, it met this response:
http://www.thevillager.com/villager_173/gurneytakes.html
Obviously the director's notes were to no avail. But the reviewer only displays her abject ignorance of the playwright (hardly an unknown quantity)and his life in her inability to understand we imperfect humans love our families despite (yes, and sometimes because of) their imperfections. Sometimes all we can do is laugh. And isn't that a blessing?
A.R. Gurney
..is a the most liberal, progressive playwright the reviewer might ever want to meet. He could have written a totally sanitized, sentimental little family memoir, but he didn't. He loved his family, warts and all.
I would suggest that before the reviewer displays her abject ignorance again she do a little more homework. Though how she could see this play and describe it as "Gurney's petty longing for a privileged past" leads one to think theatrical criticism isn't her forte.
Indian Blood has been positively reviewed across the country. But if you'd like an intelligent liberal's take on the script and the playwright, try the Villager's:
http://www.thevillager.com/villager_173/gurneytakes.html
Would that our families were all perfect. Sometimes the only thing we can do is laugh. And a little more laughter in this world is a gift.
Howell review of Indian Blood and Hatlestad reply
TC Daily Planet should fire Ms. Howell and hire young Mr. Hatlestad to replace her. He obviously has a better grasp of comedy than she does, or is likely to attain.
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