As part of Jenn McKee and Don Calamia’s new Platonic
Theater Date review series, we attended the same matinee performance of The
Jewish Ensemble Theatre’s “Hard Love” on Thursday, April 26, and followed-up
with a conversation about the show. Here is our joint review:
Love
stories nearly always focus on individuals struggling to overcome obstacles in
order to be together, yet Motti Lerner’s “Hard Love,” now being staged by The
Jewish Ensemble Theatre through May 6, focuses on lovers who can’t seem to get out of their
own way.
This
is for many reasons, of course – religious beliefs, and their role in one’s
sense of identity being chief among them. The play begins with novelist Zvi
(Drew Parker) coming to visit his ex-wife Hannah (Inga R. Wilson) in an
Orthodox Jewish section of Jerusalem. Though the two haven’t seen each other
since their painful, teenage divorce twenty years earlier, and they’ve each
remarried – Zvi renounced his faith and moved to Tel Aviv in the interim –
Zvi’s son and Hannah’s daughter have recently met and fallen in love. But
Hannah wants Zvi to discourage the courtship.
So
the meeting is ostensibly about their children, but it inevitably ends up being
more about Zvi and Hannah and their unresolved, complicated feelings for each
other, as Zvi faces another divorce, and Hannah continues to care for her
elderly second husband. Then, in the second act, when Hannah travels to Tel
Aviv a couple of months later to visit Zvi in his apartment, the two are forced
to hash out both the things that keep drawing them together and the things that
will forever keep them apart.
DC: I think the best way to describe
the show is that it feels like a grudge match between two highly skilled tennis
players, with each serve and volley designed to one-up and severely cripple
their opponent. As such, it makes this show very difficult to get into the
specifics, because to do so would give way too much away – and the fun of this
show (if you can call it that) is watching the revelations that come from
watching these two players work their strategies.
JM: My question late in the show was,
are there too many revelations? These are people in a tough situation, but
after a certain point, it felt like we were watching them talk in circles.
Painful, emotionally fraught circles.
DC: Yes, and I felt a bit battered by
the end. It certainly takes them AND us on one hell of a roller coaster ride
that
has the potential to go on forever.
JM: And you don't have that "We
made it!" kind of post-rollercoaster rush of relief. It's more the queasy
kind of "I don't feel so good" response. Plus, when something's this
emotionally brutal, I leave asking myself, what do we take from this?
DC: I walked away thinking, "I
hope these two are finally finished with this nonsense."
JM: They can't be! That's the thing. We
can't get into specifics without giving revelations away, but that's part of
what makes this such a tough go, even once a final decision is made.
DC: Yes. It took twenty years to get to
this point, and unfortunately, you KNOW this isn’t going to be their last
battle. I’m not sure I’d be up for a sequel if it’s as grueling as this one.
JM: As hard as it is to watch these
characters’ emotional face-off for 90 minutes, I can only imagine what Parker
and Wilson go through for each performance.
DC: Exactly. If the audience
feels bruised and battered, so must they. But damn, they're good!
JM: They are. And their performance in
these complicated, meaty roles is probably the best thing about "Hard
Love." The script itself, well, I have a few issues. But Parker and Wilson
do their absolute damnedest with the material they have to work with.
DC: I was impressed right from the
beginning when, for probably the first 10 minutes or so, Wilson never looks
directly
at Parker. How can you talk to and interact with someone only a few feet away
and NOT look at them? Even by accident?
JM: It’s true-to-life in those kind of
circumstances, of course, and I was impressed, too, with her dialect work and
physical choices. So much was conveyed by the way she held her body and moved
around that claustrophobic apartment. Everything she says and does in that
first act is almost an apology for her presence, for the argument she feels
compelled to make, etc. She's been taught to be present but largely invisible
all her life, and we see her chafe against that with the appearance of Zvi on
the scene.
DC: Yet there's that spark she still
feels for him that slips through every now and then. It's a much-nuanced
performance with tons of subtleties woven throughout.
JM: Zvi’s more overt with his feelings
for Hannah, but given how "non" she’s dedicated to being in her own
life, I struggled to understand what still appealed to him about her in this
cloistered life. I know it's wrapped up in his childhood, his past identity,
and his memories, but it's still something we have to take on faith.
DC: I’m not sure if he was attracted to
HER so
much as he was the idea of taking her away from what
she held most dear.
JM: Which ties in all the comparisons
he keeps making between his mother, who'd committed suicide, and Hannah. He
seems bent on "saving" Hannah, more than loving her for who she is.
Which undercuts so much of what's said and what happens. And Zvi's got other
contradictions, too. Parker definitely had his hands full with this role. I
mean, upon having what seems like a heart-to-heart with Hannah in act two, Zvi
has a phone call with his latest young-girlfriend-of-the-month that reveals
that neither we, nor Hannah, should trust what he says.
DC: But Hannah
shouldn't be trusted, either. She’s equally manipulative. I suspect the result
of what happens at the end of Act One COULD be the result of just how far she
might go to get what she wants.
JM: It almost feels like director Linda
Ramsay-Detherage should hand out scorecards before the lights go down.
DC: (Laughs) That's why I referred to
it as a tennis match. Who's winning changes with every volley, and all the
while our heads keep spinning from one side to the other.
JM: But there's no clear person to root
for in this fight. They're both deeply flawed, which is realistic but
inevitably frustrates you as an audience member. How can I get invested on more
than an intellectual level if both of these people can’t be straight with each
other?
DC: I actually left feeling sorry for
both of them, in a way. Apart they might be nice people, but together they are
like water and oil, and neither sees it. So their unhappiness is pretty much
assured. Oh, the games people play!
JM: I suppose it's kind of revolutionary
in a sense to go against the audience's desires and expectations of how a
"love story" is supposed to go. This ultimately leaves me
"appreciating" the play's artistry at an arm’s-length distance,
though, more than being shaken or moved by it.
DC: Agreed. I thought Ramsey-Detherage
staged it quite well and got amazing performances out of her two actors.
JM: Let’s talk about the tech
contributions to the show. First, I'll just say that sound designer Matt Lira's
choice to play familiar pop ballads sung in Hebrew during the breaks was subtly
effective in setting the mood.
DC: I was about to mention that, too!
That was very creative. Several times I found myself
thinking, “Is that…?” And yes, it was – but in Hebrew!
JM: A really nice touch. And Elspeth
Williams' set design, furnished with Harold Jurkiewicz's props, offered a nice
contrast with regard to the very different lives that Zvi and Hannah have been
living.
DC: Yes, both apartments certainly
served to explain the different circumstances in which each lived. Neil Koivu's
lighting certainly added to the mood as well.
JM: I noticed Mary Copenhagen's
costumes most with Wilson, who must dress so modestly and plainly as an
Orthodox woman. I think these costumes likely helped Wilson achieve that
hemmed-in physicality I referred to earlier, where she's, in many ways, trapped
by her own life.
DC: Yes, she certainly LOOKED the part.
Zvi just needed to look modern day. And he did.
JM: Though the overall experience of
"Hard Love" was harrowing, I will say that I don't often see a play
that takes religion seriously as something important in the lives of its
characters, and I appreciated that. It's a topic that's so rich with potential
conflict, particularly in regard to people's sense of themselves, but I think playwrights,
and we as theatergoers, tend to shy away from it because it’s such an
uncomfortable, deeply personal subject. So I appreciated the playwright’s
courage in tackling something so tricky.
DC: Me, too. Religion is one of a
handful of topics that in past years no one was supposed to talk about in
public because of how explosive the discussion could become - and "Hard
Love" is a pretty good example of just how true that is.
JM: And it's WITHIN a single religion!
DC: Yes. The believer and the doubter.
This is a "family squabble,” religion-wise. But every religion has them,
which makes it universal.
JM:
The story reminded me of one of my favorite punchlines: two Jews, three
opinions!
DC: This Catholic won't touch that punchline! (Laughs) But I will offer my opinion: Personally, I think Zvi HATES
God, and his revenge against Him is an attempt to destroy Hannah's faith, too.
What didn't make sense to me, then, was if Zvi was successful, the end result
would be a woman he no
longer recognized. And what would happen then? I don't think he'd be happy. Nor
would she.
JM: Oh, Don. Neither of these people
was ever going to be happy.
DC: True,
true. So
I guess I should ask: Ultimately, did you LIKE the play or not?
JM: Well, ... it's hard for me to
recommend it outright. Not because of the work of the artists involved, which
is solid, but because of the script. I felt used up upon leaving, which, to my
mind, runs counter to thinking more deeply about the issues raised by the play. Did YOU like
the play?
DC: Despite the bruises and the
whiplash, I found the plot more complicated than it needed to be, but
ultimately it was the excellent work of the director and actors digging through
all of the muck and making as much sense of it as possible that I found
appealing.
JM: I think that "more complicated
than it needed to be" is my sticking point. The play felt like a looooong
90 minutes, and that's because watching each volley of this intense tennis
match was exhausting. It was hard for me to take it all in when constantly
shifting agendas and so many bits of information are coming at you.
DC: So YES, Linda, where IS that
scorecard Jenn asked for?
JM: I think it's an idea that’s time
has come.
DC: Just make sure you get the credit!
Photo by Jan Cartwright
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