It has been said that Chekhov sat with quiet eyes at the gateway of the soul. But in "Prayer for My Enemy," playwright Craig Lucas dares to go within, guiding the audience through a private tour of the decaying layers of contemporary American society. Under Lucas' searing vision and Bartlett Sher's splendid direction, this journey can be painful; it can be profound; it can be amusing. But it is always revealing.
"Prayer" marks the latest collaboration between Lucas and Sher, a winning combination aided by a stellar cast. Previous Lucas-Sher endeavors include the Tony-nominated "The Light in the Piazza," productions of "The Dying Gaul" and "The Singing Forest," as well as Lucas's adaptations of "Three Sisters" and, most recently, "Uncle Vanya." You may also know Lucas from his screenplays, "Prelude to a Kiss," "Longtime Companion" and "The Secret Life of Dentists," among others.
A bare stage awaits the actors and audience, and you're tempted to protest, "Oh no! Not another set on rollers." But director Sher uses designer John McDermott's minimalism with symphonic brilliance. As the actors move across the stage with furniture and props, their graceful patterns resemble a dance of sorts, synchronized with classical strains of Handel's music.
In fact, Lucas' drama unfolds rather like a piece of music with discordant bursts of rants, rages and regrets, colliding at psychological and emotional intersections. Lucas examines modern-day woes, touching on morality, family dynamics, the travesty of war, urban living, sexuality, autism, alcoholism, caregiving, love, hate and the existence of God. It's an ambitious undertaking to tackle in 90 uninterrupted minutes, but Lucas does so with his trademark creativity, sensitivity and humor.
He focuses his investigation on the four members of the Noone family, along with their son's childhood friend Tad and a 40something woman named Delores, who has no connection to any of them until their lives unexpectedly veer into one another.
As the play unfolds, boyhood buddies Billy Noone (Daniel Zaitchik) and Tad Voelkl (James McMenamin) are reunited years later during a chance encounter at a gas station. Turns out that Billy and Tad diddled around sexually before they dallied with girls. Since Tad was once an extended family member of the Noone clan, he quickly reinstates himself in their midst. Though he equates being high with being happy, Tad longs to be part of a family - even the dysfunctional Noones.
Each character harbors a personal rage. When he isn't obsessing about the Yankees, the family's bipolar patriarch, Austin (John Procaccino), a Vietnam veteran and former alcoholic turned rage-a-holic, berates his son Billy's masculinity by calling him "Helen" and rhapsodizes about the glory of elephants. Austin's wife Karen (Cynthia Lauren Tewes) acts as family peacemaker, often at the expense of her own self-worth and individuality.
In an effort to prove his heterosexuality and win his abusive father's approval, Billy enlists in the National Guard, soon to be deployed to Iraq. His outspoken, divorced sister Marianne (Chelsey Rives) rages internally at her father and suffers guilt over her institutionalized, autistic son. A dissolute Tad still resents his high school marriage and his former wife's decision to abort their unborn child.
Juxtaposed against this fracas, Delores (Kimberly King) escapes New York City and moves home to suburbia to care for her ailing mother. As the Noones go about their bickering, Delores stands downstage ranting about life in Manhattan, where her boyfriend Charles prefers to stay. Although her character's relevance remains a puzzlement until the end of the play, as Delores, King offers both candor and comedy relief from family travails. "I'd like to hop on his head," Delores rails against her lover, "and smother him with my thighs ... and anything else he hasn't been paying attention to."
But for Lucas' purposes, it is as much what people don't say as what they do. Hidden thoughts, or "psychic interiors" as Lucas calls them, reveal what his characters are really thinking in spoken asides that contrast to their actual dialogue. Eugene O'Neill first used this technique in his 1928 play "Strange Interlude." Of course, Shakespeare was renowned for his dramatic soliloquies. But in Lucas's hands, "stream of consciousness" interior monologues take on new meaning.
A comatose Austin transcends his rage to internalize infinite wisdom for his son, who tragically will never hear it spoken aloud. Tad, the most promiscuous and self-indulgent character of Lucas' saga, actually is the most overtly loving. But when he marries and impregnates Marianne, the still-closeted Billy weeps for the loss of his true love. Perhaps Tad sees his marriage as a way of remaining close to his boyhood lover so they might rekindle their passions. And Marianne? She just wants her newborn child to be "normal."
Occasionally, all this bouncing between Lucas' psychic interiors and the play's actual dialogue can be distracting and hard to follow. As Marianne, the feisty Rives seems the most adept at this challenge.
But the entire cast does a superb job. Procaccino rages with Lear-like intensity as the alcoholic father Austin. In contrast, Tewes represses her fears and frustrations as his placating wife Karen. While McMenamin manages to be endearing as the substance-abusing Tad, Zaitchik captures the conflicts of Billy's sexuality and his heart-wrenching attempts to win his father's love. And the marvelous King almost turns the lonely Delores into a one-woman show with her magnificent range of emotions.
One aspect of Lucas' genius is that he delivers humorous soundbites with meaningful subtexts as well as thought-provoking speeches of great depth and profundity. When his characters make a statement, they often prompt a philosophical reaction. Like when Billy quotes his father's words, "Stay out of your head. It's a bad neighborhood."
Following the lead of their theatrical predecessors, American playwrights have long immortalized the tragedy of flawed families. Eugene O'Neill exposed the Tyrones, Arthur Miller destroyed the Lomans and Tennessee Williams shattered Blanche DuBois's illusions. The list goes on.
The Noones may not be in the same league with these legendary characters. But Craig Lucas offers unique insights into a damaged family ... and hopefully, society's underlying rage.
'PRAYER FOR MY ENEMY'
Intiman Theatre
Tuesday-Sunday through Aug. 26
Tickets: $10-$48, 269-1900 or www.intiman.org
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