Review

The Shadow Of Greatness
28 July 2000

At the far side of mid-career, renowned playwright Alan Perry, the central character in Gary Socol's uneven new play, "The Shadow of Greatness" -which is having its world premiere at the Berkshire Theatre Festival- is carrying a great deal of baggage.

His plays have lifted him into the front ranks of America's contemporary playwrights and affected his fans in a variety of personal ways. His last two plays, however, have been flops. He is haunted by the death, some years earlier, of the one true love of his life.

Angry, resentful, cynical, Perry (Richard Chamberlain) decides to shed himself of his three most ardent fans by inviting them -unbeknownst to one another- to his comfortable Beekman Place apartment (elegantly designed by Rob Odorisio) for an evening that is meant to shatter their individual and collective illusions about him.

One fan, Elle (Kelley Overbey), is an effusive young actress who keeps a scrapbook of Perryanna. Another, Roxanne (Jan Maxwell), is a recovering alcoholic and drug addict, a bookstore manager who is blunt about her reasons for accepting Perry's invitation. A third, Scott (Ross Gibby), is a gay aspiring playwright who wants to follow in Perry's footsteps.

They have each revealed much of themselves in individual long-term correspondences with Perry. They also have connected to him through personal identification with some character in one of his plays. They also, it turns out, are connected to Perry by virtue of having experienced some deep, profound loss at some time in their respective lives.

Perry sets out to methodically alter their expectations, of the evening, of him; to make them understand what it means to be a prisoner; to make each of them take responsibility for the corner in which Perry finds himself and to set himself free in the process.

It is one of the ironies of "The Shadow of Greatness" that the freedom Perry finds is unexpected and more profound than the one he anticipates when the evening begins.

Perry earns a living by creating characters and manufacturing and then manipulating situations. He can exert perfect control on the typewriter or computer but real life is something else. Even in a setting as controlled as his own apartment, Perry finds far more than he bargained for as his evening of games playing works its way to a near-tragic conclusion.

Perry claims his fans see him through the prism of their own needs and expectations. The fact is he too has lost sight of himself.

"No matter how well you think you know me, Elle," he tells the young actress at one point, "I am a stranger, one who might be completely unlike the Alan Perry you've created in your mind."

Perry has lived so long in the shadow of his own greatness, he has become his own invention. In the process, he has lost sight of where the real Alan Perry begins and the invented Alan Perry ends. It's a truth he begins to face only as the evening winds down.

Socol has taken big risks in writing "The Shadow of Greatness and not all of them pay off. As Perry sytematically sets his guests up and then pulls the rug out from underneath, Socol does the same with his audience. But there comes a point at which Socol loses control. The gimmickry begins serving its own needs rather than those of the play and its characters, particularly in the manipulative turn of events near the end of the play.

For all the play's twists and turns, for all its surprises, there still is much you can see coming far in advance.

Socol's writing, particularly his use of theater metaphor, becomes thick and obvious. The dialogue is forced and preachy.

Despite persuasive performances by Gibby and by Overbey, Scott and Elle are shallow, narrowly defined characters who, despite the time they are given on stage, are little more than fodder for the main event -the relationship that develops between Perry and Roxanne.

Socol has saved his best writing for these two, particularly in two rivetingly played, extended scenes in the second act. Chamberlain, who delivers a credible, finely nuanced, subtly detailed performance throughout, and the remarkable Maxwell are more than up to the challenge.

Chamberlain colors Perry with a delicate sense of weight and burden, an unspoken restlessness.

Maxwell's smartly conceived Roxanne is quick-witted, direct, as sure of herself as she can be. She is honest about her past, her loss, her physical and emotional recovery. She is tough and nobody's fool.

For all the life that courses through her, there is weariness and strength in Roxanne's eyes. It is her strength, in fact, that exposes the fear and uncertainty within Perry; that makes him realize they are fellow travelers; that allows him, in the end, to take the first tentative steps out from the shadows of his own greatness toward a life he never thought would be possible again -as an artist and as a man.

© 2000 Jeffrey Borak

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