Over their years of residence at
The Mount, Edith Wharton's mansion in Lenox, Shakespeare & Company developed in their
adaptations of the writer's short stories a supremely civilized form of
entertainment: The Wharton One Acts. Presented in Edith's drawing room, with tea on the
terrace at intermission, the Literary Lady of the Mount seemed to preside over
the plays. We in the audience were her guests. She allowed us into her
exclusive world: she presented her acquaintance to us and even encouraged some
laughter at their expense-- but only if we were able to rise to the occasion!
When we did rise, the buoyancy could linger for years-- I'm smiling now as I
write this, as a series of deft and delightful scenes from Wharton One Acts
Past enact themselves before my mind's eye.
When
Shakespeare & Company was evicted from the Mount I was afraid that I would
never experience that peculiar Wharton buoyancy again. But the One Acts are
back this season, transplanted in full bloom from The Mount to a similar Lenox
mansion, Spring Lawn, across town in the company's new location. Dennis
Krausnick's
canny deployment of Wharton's words and director Eleanor Holdridge's management of the company's
signature staging style-- one that combines specific period detail with a lean
Thornton Wilder expressionism-- reaches a new peak of perfection in the
performances of veteran actors Corinna May and Jason Asprey. The actors are expert at
presenting the polished surfaces of privileged American life on the cusp
between the 19th and 20th centuries, at confiding the characters' inner
thoughts though direct address to the audience in the intimate domestic space,
and at conveying unacknowledged depth though significant glances or the escape
of a sudden small gesture whose lack of control is like a thunderclap amongst
the teacups. They create-- or re-create-- a world very different from the daily
one of the casually clad tourists who assemble in the drawing room to watch, or
from the competing entertainments available to us on screens or stages
elsewhere, and it is a world that is utterly engaging. We emerge an hour and a
half later amused: but also enlarged and enlightened.
The
first play, adapted from Wharton's 1904 story "The Mission of Jane" is presented to us by one
Julian Lethbury (Asprey) a New York socialite with an ironic wit who is
resigned to the boredom of his marriage to a lovely and good natured but far
from clever wife, Alice (May). One day as they sit down to an elaborate meal he
notices that she appears to have something on her mind-- or on what in her
passes for a mind. He is astonished when the "something" turns out to
be not a dress or a party but a baby girl who has been abandoned in a charity
hospital upon her mother's death. It is such a good baby, so pretty, the nurses
agree that its dead mother must have been a lady!
At
this sudden revelation of a yearning maternal instinct in his otherwise placid
wife it dawns upon Lethbury that he has been neglectful, and he assents to
their adoption of Jane. The child will give his poor bored wife a harmless
occupation, and although it is sure to be an annoyance to have such an addition
to his household he is willing to do the generous, gentlemanly, thing.
Krausnick's
dramatization of "The Mission of Jane" is structured by the staging conceit
of a single decades-spanning formal meal: each scene is one of the many
courses, served by a uniformed maid. The various comestibles appear, are
tasted, the couple converse; there is a monologue or bridging action as the
table is cleared and props are re-set. When the next course is served, time --
from a few days to several years-- has passed, and the married pair's
discussion reflects Jane's transforming effect on the household and the
progressively more challenging stages of the girl's growth and education.
After
iced tea, lemonade, and cookies at intermission, we are treated to the second
Wharton One Act, "The Promise", adapted from the story "Les Metteurs en
Scene." In it, Corinna May plays an intelligent, beautiful, and well
connected American woman who has a taste for the elegancies of life that is far
above what her own resources would allow. Blanche Lambert lives beyond her
means by attaching herself to wealthy Americans who wish to marry their
well-dowered daughters into the aristocratic families of Europe who need new
money to support their crumbling estates and expensive life style. She takes
them in hand, polishes them up, and introduces them to her titled friends.
These friends, particularly the gentlemen, enjoy her company and encourage her
match making: why not? She is everything an upper class man would desire in a
companion--- but without a dowry, not a competitor in the Marriage Stakes.
Jason
Asprey plays a penniless French aristocrat who works in the same field
--arranging marriages between his titled bachelor friends and the well dowered
girls they need to pay their debts and maintain their traditional status. Jean
Le Fanois is handsome, witty, attentive: the liquid honey of his French accent
is enough to make a susceptible American female weak at the knees. It's not
hard to imagine that wealthy women, both the eligible girls and their ambitious
mothers, are attracted to him in flocks-- his task is to separate out the
passable ones and herd them towards a suitable groom who will show Le Fanois a
proper amount of financial gratitude once the impoverished artistocrat is wed
and possessed of the female's fortune. The trick of it is to find just the
right degree of stupidity to match with just the right degree of vulgarity-- a
union seen by society as a serious misalliance would soil Le Fanois' reputation
and ruin his business. Blanche and Jean are a pair; colleagues who understand
and appreciate each other. What more they are, and what "The Promise"
of the title might refer to, is the tantalizing subtext of each brief scene.
Both
Kiki Smith
and Nikki Maritch
are credited with the impeccable costuming which contributes to the perfect fit
between content and context in both productions. If Wharton or her friend Henry
James are your cup of tea, or if you enjoy Drawing Room tragicomedy of the
Masterpiece Theatre sort--- or even if you are simply curious to see a unique
brand of theatre masterfully executed-- it is well worth a pilgrimage to
Shakespeare & Company in Lenox for this summer's offering. It may, alas, be
the last "perfect Wharton" we will have the chance to see. Spring
Lawn Mansion has been sold: the company will be relieved of the burden of the
extensive necessary repairs to the mansion's structure, and the cash from the sale
will keep the rest of the operation afloat. Shakespeare & Company is
planning to build another theatre, of a suitable size and shape for intimate
shows like the One Acts. But The Whartons are a subtle mixture of artifice and
authenticity. Who can be the sure that The Spirit of the Gilded Age will
consent to preside in a brash new space?