Review - Visiting Mr. Green

[Rhyme Astronaut]

What I love most about community theater is its unsettling quality. It's unsettling seeing your insurance agent, college professor, lawyer, doctor, or mechanic onstage pretending to be a principled juror or hooker with a heart of gold. It's unsettling to see someone have a bad night onstage – forgetting a line, blowing an entrance, or losing a wig. Frequently, it's unsettling to see what sends an audience into gales of laughter (e.g., gay jokes, scatology). But for me, community theater is most unsettling when it upends my long-held perceptions about a particular theater company.

And this is how I found myself unsettled in the comfy seats of Epilogue Theater this weekend.

Epilogue's current production is Visiting Mr. Green, the tale of a young Jew in New York assigned to check in on an aging Orthodox Jewish widower -- a widower he narrowly missed mowing down with his car. The widower is weighed down with heavy baggage, burdened not only with crippling depression following the loss of his wife but also with outmoded social views brought over from Minsk. [SPOILER ALERT - LOOK FOR THE "ALL CLEAR" BELOW!] Not surprisingly, the widower's old-world views clash with his young friend's gay lifestyle.

[ALL CLEAR]

Think of it as an angrier Tuesdays with Morrie. And don't think for a minute that you can afford to miss it.

Mr. Green is a great choice for the typical Epilogue audience while still being challenging and sufficiently unique to lure newcomers. My chief complaint with Epilogue (along with several other area theaters) -- one to which I've alluded in prior reviews -- is poor, unimaginative programming. Epilogue's comedies tend to wallow in broad, lowest-common-denominator humor; its dramas rarely stray from comfortable themes involving aging. Rarely have I emerged excited from an Epilogue show, and I can think of only one time in the past five years when I have recommended an Epilogue production to friends. (To Kill A Mockingbird really was very well done). Yet just when I am ready to write-off Epilogue, they come out swinging with a terrific, engaging, and well-acted production.

Director Gene Cramer has lucked into a perfect cast for Mr. Green. In the titular role, Bernard Wurger turns in a dramatic tour de force. Few actors can pull off "cantankerous" as ably as Mr. Wurger, and this ability serves him well here. Yet whereas a less skilled actor might allow the character to degenerate into caricature, Wurger conjures a more plausible, fully-realized Mr. Green clothed in layers of pathos. Yes, Wurger's accent and mannerisms are amazing, but his Mr. Green is so much more; he imbues the character with such complexity that it becomes impossible to look away. I found myself transfixed by Wurger's every movement, admiring everything from the subtle improvement in his gait throughout the play to his determined focus while devouring a bowl of soup. Wurger's performance is -- in a word -- mesmerizing.

[A few months ago, Marty Essig turned in an equally nuanced portrayal of an aging Jewish mother in Crossing Delancey in Lebanon. I don't know if they've ever worked together, but I would pay serious money to watch Wurger and Essig share the stage as a Semitic couple.]

As the young man compelled by a judge to put up with his curmudgeonly charge, Josh Breese does a fine job. At times, his line-delivery feels flat, and one monologue in particular during the second Act lacked the emotional punch it deserved. But Breese's portrayal feels so effortless and his interplay with Wurger feels so natural that he is forgiven the occasional misstep. The fact remains that Breese's is the best portrayal of this character I have seen.

Which brings me to the most unsettling aspect (for me anyway) of Epilogue's production: with Mr. Green, Epilogue has bested one of the stronger, more consistently entertaining theater companies in town. Last season, Spotlight Players in Beech Grove performed Mr. Green. Though I found Spotlight's interpretation entertaining, there was nothing dazzling about the performances in that show. Suffice it to say, central Indiana theater-goers would do themselves a serious disservice to miss Epilogue's version merely because they think they saw the same show last season. Trust me -- they didn't.

For months, I have been wrestling with whether to write about what I consider to be one of the biggest obstacles to the success of our community theaters: cribbing your season from the theater across town. Every year we're treated to at least one production done the year prior by another theater in town. (Just by way of recent example, I saw Christmas Belles three years in a row recently, I will see The Curious Savage for the fourth time in two years if I can find a ride down to Franklin next month, and I could have seen Leading Ladies for the fifth time since 2008 had I made it out to Clinton County last month.) Every time it happens, I presume that someone from Theater B saw Theater A's production and thought "Hey! That's a good show. So-and-so would be great in that. We could do that better." And they never, ever do. Until now. Epilogue may have borrowed its selection of Mr. Green from Spotlight's 2010-11 season, but this time it pays off. Epilogue thought it could do the show better, and it succeeded. And in the process, Epilogue stole the wind from my sails.

But to all the show selection committees out there, please exercise extreme caution when deciding to put up a show that you just saw last season at another theater. Just think of the poor theater that decides to do Visiting Mr. Green next year, thinking it can outperform Epilogue's production and the great Bernard Wurger. That, as Mr. Green might say, would be just plain meshuga.

[kries]

Great review - sounds like a well done production! As I understand it - due to illness another actor Dave Harold had to step into the prior weekend - and from what I hear did a great job as well.

On a note concerning seasons and some overlap/duplication. Part of the challenge of our community of theatres is that there are so many of us - and our directors/play selection committees/boards are working sometimes 1-2 years in advance to slate a season. This is done as early as possible in order to line up resources, royalties and prepare publicity. While I am sure many of us try to take into consideration what other theatres are producing - in some cases there is going to be duplication. Sometimes unexpected - but also, some times not. There are times when theatres will choose to do a show, not I believe because they think they can do better perhaps, but because they think it is a show that will appeal to their audience. An audience that might not have seen another production because it is outside their typical travel radius.

It is a very fine balancing act that must be made in selecting seasons. While I recognize there is some duplication (take Moonlight and Magnolias for example that will have been performed by 3 companies in less than 6 months I believe) I firmly believe every theatre is striving to choose the best season possible for their respective audiences as well as their acting pool.

[hexshadowman]

Thanks for the glowing review! Glad you enjoyed our show. I will work to improve the monologue and line delivery.

-Breece (with a C)

[Alec Smard]

I will work to improve the monologue and line delivery.

If your director has seen something and suggests a change, you'd be well served to pay attention.

If you change your performance one little bit because of something you saw in a review, shame on you. Please reconsider.

[liloldlady]

Well said Karla and Alex! Actually my husband started working on getting the rights to "Visiting Mr. Green" four or five years ago when we saw it at the Asolo theatre in Sarasota. BTW, although my name is at the bottom of the screen, most IA know me as liloldlady (girls just want to have fun) . Bernard Wurger was put in intensive care with pneumonia. With about one week to prepare, Dave Harold, with coaching from his wife Peg, got his lines back and Epilogue opened March 3, only one day late. How many actors could or would do that for a production? The two actors had different interpretations of Mr. Green. I also saw Dave in Spotlights production.

[rannman]

Thank you Rhyme Astronaut for your review of this show. I mostly agree. I am not sure you see Epilogue's shows every time or not but there have been some gems in the 7 years I have been involved. I would like to see more like this one that are a bit edgy. I will say that as a member of the play selection team a few years ago, I was very frustrated at some of the submissions and the number of them. When you are picking from a small group of plays you can only pick from what you are given. But to me this show and some of the other recent ones including the Remember Your Hit Parade in January show so much about Epilogue's potential. I think our audience is capable of enjoying more than just the normal fare we often choose. I thank Gene for choosing this show because although I hear it was written in 1966, so much of it is still so true today. One person I saw the show with, like you, was also amazed that Epilogue would do such a show. He was very pleasantly surprised. As was I. There is nothing wrong with mixing such shows in with comedies and musicals. I hope that in the future we continue to step up and challenge ourselves to keep growing and changing and not just being comfortable with what we know we can do and what we think our audience will come to see. If we try new things like this show, who knows, maybe we can build our audience and grow it as well!

[agingdiva]

By the way, RA, the next production at Epilogue Players is "Hot l Baltimore" to be directed by Marsha Grant, who won the E. Edward Greene award for Lifetime Achievement in Theatre at last year's Encore Awards celebration. This show to my knowledge hasn't been produced in Indy for a long time. Look us up. Production dates are May 4-20.

And by another way, I wish you had seen Remember Your Hit Parade, an original revue to which I made a certain contribution.

[liloldlady]

Epilogue has a core audience, over 180 Season Ticket people, and we always keep them in mind. We do try for one "edgy" play to help us stretch as actors and challenge our audience. With this in mind, we are able to keep our productions going for three weekends, nine performances. Many theatres have had to cut back to two weekends, not including a Christmas show. TOTS and Phoenix fill the niche for cutting edge productions. Many theatres serve a community and choose productions that cater to their taste. I am curious. Are you a member of a group? Do you act, paint scenery, collect props, clean the auditorium? Every theatre needs WORKERS not just names on a roster. Epilogue is a member of Encore - we all would welcome your help.