A Novel Idea
Tennessee Women’s Theater Project tackles a play about New York’s elite literary circles
by Martin Brady
“You can probably be assured that when we produce a play, there will be more women on stage than men,” says Maryanna Clarke, founder of the Tennessee Women’s Theater Project. TWTP—which came to life in 2005 with a production of A Single Woman, a one-person play about suffragist Jeannette Rankin—is committed to, in Clarke’s words, “gender equity,” meaning increased theatrical opportunities for females, both in performance and technical areas.
The company’s feminist slant is not an exclusive proposition. Clarke’s husband, Chris Clarke, is on board in the critical role of producer, and men are welcome as necessary. Of particular note is the fact that the Clarkes are offering non-Equity living wages to actors and stage managers and reasonable one-time fees to technicians and designers.
TWTP’s current production, Donald Margulies’ Collected Stories, is a dual character study that takes place over six years (1990 to 1996), involving a matronly Jewish literary doyenne and her young, WASP-y writing student. Margulies, a Pulitzer Prize winner (Dinner With Friends) and a teacher at Yale, unabashedly trolls the waters of the Eastern intellectual establishment in his works; Collected Stories immerses its audience in the elite New York publishing scene, with its esoteric banter about Saul Bellow, Woody Allen, Delmore Schwartz, the White Horse Tavern, schadenfreude, the “write-what-you-know“ ethos and prestigious literary readings at the 92nd Street Y.
Terry Occhiogrosso plays the mentor, Ruth Steiner, and RheAnn White Fuller is the protégé, Lisa Morrison. Their initially uneasy teacher-pupil relationship grows stronger through the years until reaching a stormy climax when Morrison publishes a novel that draws upon Steiner’s life.
The performances here are sincere, and the sometimes cynical “insider” dialogue is recited meaningfully. Yet the shape of the characters is wobbly. Director Clarke allows her players to talk statically at each other for too long—always a risk with a two-person drama—and credibility and focus are commensurately strained. (More specific blocking would help break up the rote patterns of “she said/she said.”) Meanwhile, Occhiogrosso stays on one dour note too much of the time, and Fuller, though pleasingly animated, doesn’t push her performance far enough for us to see her gradual transformation from wide-eyed neophyte to ambitious professional.
Kim Russell and Robert Kiefer are responsible for the set, which tries to re-create Steiner’s arty Greenwich Village apartment. It’s an honest attempt, logically and proportionately laid out, but it falls short of the aesthetic mark.
The play is being staged at the Z. Alexander Looby Theatre at 2301 Metrocenter Blvd., thanks to in-kind support from officials at Metro Parks and Recreation. The Looby is a 180-seat, city-owned facility with a useful proscenium stage, located in a part of town that is somewhat foreign territory to regular theatergoers. (It’s just down the road from Watkins Film School.) There’s plenty of free parking, and, except for a roof that tends to clatter loudly during rainstorms, it would seem to be an excellent alternative for Nashville performing groups.
Despite its flaws, this production of Collected Stories is still a modestly engaging effort; it’s reasonable to expect bigger and better things from TWTP in the future.
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