In anticipation of a new medium-sized venue at the Boston Center for the Arts, for which ground is actually being broken, the Huntington Theatre Company has been producing more polished shows in the 210 Rehearsal Hall next to the B.U. Theatre. Their latest endeavor, Nicky Silver's "The Maiden's Prayer" is a better product than Jon Robin Baitz's "Ten Unknowns" which overlapped it on their mainstage. Both scripts could have done with rewrites, but Silver's gets superior acting from a fine ensemble cast of familiar faces, and tight directing from Scott Edmiston, the company's Associate Artistic Director. Incidentally, "The Maiden's Prayer" was directed in NYC for the Vineyard in 1998 by Evan Younoulis, who helmed the Baitz in a workwoman-like but not especially inspired manner.
This script has a lot of activity and an almost forced sense of drama, interspersed with repartee. Its title refers to a Victorian piano solo which can still be heard at some themed weddings. Silver seems to be trying to write Noël Coward for the '90s, blending that author's brittle comedy with the sense of doom found in earlier Coward dramas. Which does give the actors a lot to work with, even if the play gets lost somewhere in all the to-ing-&-fro-ing. By the time the play ends, a lot has been revealed about each character, but little if anything has been resolved. Life goes on, but so what?
The ostensible narrator of the piece, Paul, played by Mark Setlock, last seen here in "Fully Committed", directed by Nicholas Martin, the Norma Jean Calderwood Artistic Director of the Huntington, starts and ends the show, but his contact with the audience is overshadowed by other monologues which spring from the action. These moments, and few surreal subs-cenes, move the play away from realism into a more fluid dimension. But expectations created by this freedom are never quite reached. Paul has been fascinated by his best friend Taylor, played by Bill Mootos since childhood, and pursues a seemingly endless round of short gay sexual affairs. When the play opens, Taylor, a recovering alcoholic now running the family toy company, has just married Cynthia, played by Dee Nelson, returning briefly to Boston for the role. At the reception, in the garden of the Long Island home where Paul and Taylor played, Paul collides with Libby, Cynthia's sister, played wonderfully by Judith McIntyre. Libby met Taylor at AA, fell madly in love with him, and is drinking to drown her sorrows. This character undergoes the most transformation during the play, but like all the rest, is still in limbo at the end.
The fifth character in the piece, Andrew, played with charm by Barlow Adamson, intersects mostly with Paul who picks him up shopping for a late wedding present at Bloomingdale's. This naïf, insistently searching for love, moves in uninvited. Paul's reaction is to find another apartment. He shows up later in the play as -- what else -- a gay waiter, and becomes the de facto concluder for this fable as he explains his successful love affair with a Swede. Silver doesn't stint on the details, but his dramaturgy lacks any moral center. There's no sense what these people should do with their lives. So what they do do must be all right.
That said, the ensemble does very well, achieving a number of genuine dramatic moments. Pride of place goes to McIntyre whose Libby is searing in her almost brutal self-knowledge. Nelson is enigmatic, icy, but doesn't really have enough material to build a role. Her character is seen and judged almost solely through the sibling rivalry with Libby. Mootos plays the leading man with panache, but we don't know much more about Taylor at the end than we did after the first scene in the garden. And Paul, who's seems a possible stand-in for the author, is even less comprehensible.
But the evening passes quickly, there are sufficient laughs, and Dewey Dellay's soundtrack is effective. Scene flows to scene on Janie Howland's raked multilevels with Paul's bedroom and Libby's home bar at the rear behind a sliding collage sky -- which seems to be cut-up pieces of last summer's Commonwealth Shakespeare cyc. It works, and recycling is an old theatre tradition. There are also thankfully no black-clad minions messing with the set between scenes. The three large glass-fronted "keepsake" displays which decorate the set don't get in the way and give the audience something to look at during intermission. Odd reflections from them don't interfere with the lighting by M.I.T.'s Karen Perlow, which provides many of the evenings mood changes. IRNE winner Gail Astrid Buckley provides a set of costumes which suit the players and the action, and must keep uncredited dressers hopping backstage. The impressive level of production makes this overstuffed script worth seeing. Believing is another matter.