Review: "To Gillian On Her 37th Birthday" Wheaton Drama, Wheaton IL 4/8/10

The current production at Wheaton Drama is being touted as an Oppenheimer Award winner for Best Play.  Before reading their press release, I’d never heard of the Oppenheimer Award.  I was hoping it was akin to the Nobel Peace Prize.  Perhaps it was discovered that reading/viewing the play would shield you from radiation poisoning.  Or it was a literary award given by a group of hedge fund managers. A quick Google (I try to do that right after brushing) reveals there is an Oppenheimer Award, described as, “... the premier award to a young investigator in recognition of meritorious accomplishment in the field of basic or clinical endocrinology.”  I’m jazzed about maybe winning one, but what does that have to do with an award for “Best Play”?


It wasn’t until I reached the bowels of my Google search (somewhere around page 3) that I discovered that the award they are referring to is not for the play, but for the playwright.  To quote the Ocala Star-Banner of 8/5/84, “Michael Brady, author of ‘To Gillian On Her 37th Birthday,’ has won the George Oppenheimer Newsday award as the best new American playwright whose work was produced in New York City or Long Island. ...Newsday...annually presents the $1000 award in memory of George Oppenheimer, the newspaper’s drama critic who died in 1977.”  Not quite as prestigious as the endocrine award, but an award nonetheless. 


I mention this because in the director’s notes in the program, Marc Ludena states, “But when I read the script...I began to understand why this script was awarded the Oppenheimer Award for best play in 1983.”  And this confused me, because as I watched it unfolding on stage, I kept asking myself, “Who is Oppenheimer, and what the hell was he thinking?”  As it turns out, he wasn’t thinking at all.  He was dead.


As an audience member, these are not the thoughts that should be running through your head after the first ten minutes of a show.  You should be engaged in what’s being played out on stage and making a visceral emotional connection with the characters. For this show in particular to be successful, the audience has to care about the characters.  Unfortunately, none of the performances of this production, except for one, made me make that empathetic leap.  And, even more unfortunate, when the performances are weak, it always exposes the weaknesses of the literature.


Judging a piece of literature/movie/play has nothing to do with the subject matter.  It’s more about how it is about the subject.  I think the play addresses the issue of grieving in a manner that is rife with superficiality and structurally on par with your average After School Special.  And just as predictable.  It concerns David, a former college professor, who has entombed himself in a 2-year grief process over the death of Gillian, his wife, and has shut himself off emotionally to others, especially his daughter.  And that’s pretty much it.  All else is bunting, fluff and filler.  He is either going to make a connection with everyone, which means there will be obligatory scenes at the end so David can reveal to each person that his emotional boo-boo is gone and all is good, or he’s not.  The big conflict that ends Act 1 (spoiler alert) is whether Rachel is going to live with Ester and Paul, her aunt and uncle on her mother’s side, or stay with David.  Ooooh.  Ahhh.  That’s the conflict;  the tension that’s supposed to keep us engaged and carry us through intermission.  Evidently it wasn’t enough to entice quite a few patrons to return to their seats for Act 2 on the night I saw the show.  And when a fundamentally weak script is poorly executed, you don’t care about any of it.

David is portrayed by Craig Witt, who appears to have internalized the emotional disconnect so well that he never invests himself into the performance, nor does he display any humanity.  There is no honesty or believability in what he does on stage, and it’s hard to accept there ever was a relationship with his daughter.  He has chosen a stiff, halting delivery, with stage movements that belie his acting acumen.  He shuffled constantly, bobbed his head with every line reading, and used a stage voice that screamed, “I’m acting!!!”.  In my notes, I wrote, “I’m seeing the work, not the result of the work.”  As I’ve told many of the actors I’ve directed, the audience doesn’t care how you get there...they just want you to get there;  be honest, because they can spot insincerity a mile away.


David’s teenaged-daughter Rachel is played by Katie Kanturek, a teenager herself, who needs more time to mature as an actor.  She doesn't appear able to handle this role at this time in her budding theatre career; especially given the obstacles of a lackluster script, a lack of stage support from the principal actors and a lack of dynamic direction.  Given time and guidance, Katie has the potential to be a fine actor.


The obligatory in-law characters, Ester (Gillian’s sister) and Paul (her husband) are acted by real-life couple Jenny Dees and Ish Rios.  I expected there to be some chemistry between the two, but the characters are stereotypical at best and neither actor had the chops to bring them to life in an interesting way.  The result was routine and pedestrian characters.  I was led to believe that they were intended to be the comic relief of the show, but so much of what they did rang hollow.  They were caricatures rather than characters, and the humor fell flat.  Dramatically, there wasn’t much to hang onto.  When Ester has a reveal of her personal crisis concerning children, it felt forced and false.  Rios made some questionable acting choices and mis-played Paul, especially when he tries to convince David to return to teaching.  He brought nothing but a buffoonish grin to the acting table.


The in-laws bring someone with them on their visit to David, hoping that if she could bed him, he’d get out of his funk.  Her name is Kevin (it’s explained in the show), and she was once David’s student.  She’s hot for teacher.  Again, a fairly typical plot device.  Kevin is played by Traci Cidlik, who somehow managed to transform a character that should easily garner audience empathy into a character devoid of emotional depth.  Her timing contributed to bringing the overall pace of the show down. The scenes between her and David were froth with lethargy.


Rachel has a friend, Cindy, who has more of a personal connection with David than he has with his daughter.  She is his jogging partner and human confessional.  She has developed a crush on him and is played by Erica Pezza, a new-comer to theatre.  There is a diamond-in-the-rough quality about her.  Once she’s had more time to hone and polish her craft, I predict her time on stage will contribute greatly to any production.


The one bright spot was Lisa Schmela as titular Gillian, who comes to life only in the mind of David.  When she walked out on stage, and spoke her first line (48 minutes into the show), I wrote in my notes, “Interesting that the dead woman would bring some life to this production.”  She was natural, real and honest.  I didn’t see her “acting.”  I was drawn into the person she was and I found myself wishing I knew more about her.  She left me wanting more of her on stage.  I was sorry she was dead.


As poor execution highlights the flaws in a script, lack of energy, poor pacing, linear blocking and wavering focus in the acting reveal the flaws of the direction.  A scene at a lighthouse could have been staged in a less than cumbersome way.  The scene itself is awkwardly written, and takes place between Kevin and Rachel.  It lacked any honesty or real emotion.  Those important items were replaced with a lighthouse unit that was rolled loudly onto the stage.  Because the scene didn’t offer anything emotionality compelling, it basically said, “Look, we can put a lighthouse on stage, and we have shiny red bikes.”


The stage at Wheaton Drama is wider than it is deep, and this poses some problems in staging shows.  At times, when the whole group was having a “family” conversation, the  director tried to use all the stage.  People were very far apart and any intimacy of the scene was lost.  A simple solution would have been to narrow the audience’s view by bring the side drapes in and build a smaller, more intimate and efficient set.  Conversations between characters about their feelings were made moot by spacing that hinted that no one wanted any human connection.


There are many problems with the production.  I have copious notes.  And I shouldn’t have them.  As an audience member, I notice many things when the direction, acting and story structure don’t engage my attention.  I become distracted by the little pieces because the big picture is not there to look at.


Was it worth the price of admission. No, and I went on discount night.


Paid: $13
Worth: $2.60
Run time: 2hrs, 11 minutes with intermission


For ticket info, dates and times, visit www.wheatondrama.org