It is an engaging night at the theater—any theater. The roiling inner life of Rex Harrison is portrayed by a dynamic duo with gusto and grit. Carey Harrison—a formidable presence in his own right—sets a standard fortified by inherited qualities that substantially enliven his portrayal of old Rex. Harrison’s armchair nemesis and co-star, Mick O’Brien, is an exquisite foil to the light-hearted confidence of old Rex. As young Rex, O’Brien’s stumbling mannerisms, speech patterns and hysterical mindset lend a poignancy to the endeavor that makes the entire fantasy seem so bloody real.

Carey Harrison

Theater is magic. But, never more so than when the set, the script, the actors, the costuming all serve the same demanding master—that is, the audience—who always believes the act of showing up deserves something more. What more, you ask? The noses. What really heightens the poignancy of it all is the matching noses. At first the physical similarity of the two men just seems fitting—medium heights with the old one a couple inches shrunken and both of similar portliness. Then one can’t help notice that both actors have the same nose. The audience seemed, as I did, to accept the uncanny coincidence of it all as though these two actors really were made for these roles—not unlike Rex and Professor Higgins. Whose idea was this prosthetic detail? I imagine Claire Lambe, whose invisible touch as Company Designer and Director usually adds significant flair with her spunky Claireisms—like last year’s row of real weeds that lined the front of the stage for Hedgerow Specimen. The young and old noses were constructed by a fine make-up artist, Jane Rose. There are many reasons to see this play and prosthetic noses is not least among them. Nor, for that matter is the period dress. Karen Flood’s work in costuming is given an enormous boost by the original suits owned by Rex Harrison and worn by his son, the exact size “to the millimeter.” Nice to know that pink pants flaunted by men today bear these mid-century roots.

Many of Rex’s insecurities are present in all of us—”What if I screw up? End up with the wrong woman, wrong script, penniless”? We all know a cad or two. Driven by the same fears of failure and determined to be the best at whatever they do at whatever cost. They come rightly by the same name-calling that old Rex throws down: “Oh, it’s awfully hard to feel sorry for you, Rex. You’re such a desperately shallow, unapologetically self-regarding ass.” And, there is the self-hatred that comes with the territory—one that relies on the kindness of others to feel sorry for them, to forgive the lack of intimacy, to be ever mindful from whence they came. The pain inflicted upon women Rex snared by the force of his position and personality and the family members unwillingly cast into his drama is recognizable. Still, Rex deserves a special award and, perhaps, this play’s the thing.

Mick O’Brien

Rex Harrison’s life might look like a mess to the outsider, but, true to the personality, in the end it seems he was fine with it all. Rex was not one to reflect or take responsibility and swore to “never regret.” Rex was a victim, I suppose. But, of what? The vicissitudes of fame? Lousy parents, themselves incapable of supportive nurturing? His own demise? Could he not interrupt a destiny that he had no power to create? Could he not listen to the wisdom that gnawed at the edges of his consciousness and walk off set into another kind of life? In the end, he sits on stage, the mere puppet of his former self. Are we all so driven toward an unforgiving destiny? Or, only those of us incapable of walking away from it all (ourselves) in the well-worn shoes of another human being? Rex & Rex, an unempathetic life.

Leave it to playwright, Carey Harrison, to turn a memoir into a four-dimensional chessboard—a past, present and future, brought to life for today’s audience as a mirror to their own existence. Ironically positioned as high comedy, that is, comedy with a dark side, it merits more than a few laughs. As young Rex so aptly puts it: “Everyone gets buggered by their destiny.”

Rex & Rex is written by Carey Harrison, designed and directed by Claire Lambe.

It plays in repertory with a second play, I Won’t Bite You, by the same author at the Byrdcliffe Theater in Woodstock on weekends from June 21 through July 7.

Tickets are $20/$18 (65+ & 21–) or $30/$28 if attending both plays.
Reservations, email: thewoodstockplayers@gmail.com or call 845 901 2893

For more about the play, the performance schedule, and directions to the Byrdcliffe Theater visit the “Up Next” page on Woodstock Players website: http://www.thewoodstockplayers.com/Up_Next.php

Susan Alexander Manuso lives and writes in Greenwich Village and Willow, NY.
All photos by Sophie Baker

Justice is given voice in I Won’t Bite You. The play is presented as a virtually one-person piece—a tragedy in the tradition of Shakespeare and O’Neill. The fruit of its telling can only be carried on the back of an accomplished actress. Performing the role of Dorthea brings its own set of laurels. Holly Graff’s kaleidoscope of whirling emotional color and deft body expression moves the story around the stage into and out of light and shade as she brings the audience with her. One skill of acting simply resides in the ability to remember one’s lines. It seems a trivial thing to point to but every member of the audience was keenly aware that Graff’s performance was off the charts. It is the vehicle upon which Graff transports herself into the realm of the virtuoso. While depicting a supremely awful life Graff manages to bring a lightness of being to Dorothea. So perfect and so welcome—character and actress united, they save us from the fall.

Dorothea’s spirit is indomitable. It is demonstrated not only in her huge love for Granny Alice and her mother, Nora, but especially in the enduring love she felt for her captor, Frank of-many-an-alias. How much evil is there in this world—the banal and the outrageous? How is it that three generations of this one family—good women trying to lead good lives—could run so headlong into the worst of it? What would any one of us do in Dorothea’s situation?

The challenge in wading through the twists and turns of I Won’t Bite You is that its message is deeply rooted in the age-old existential debate regarding the presence of evil in the world. Paul Ricoeur, who fought in World War II and was a prisoner of war, wrote in the mid-twentieth century about narrative myth and the nature of evil. His book, Fallible Man posed two primary questions—unde malum? (where does evil come from?) and unde malum faciamus? (how does it come about that we do evil?). Harrison speaks from within the generation borne out of the strife, rancor, bloodshed and deprivation of the twentieth century World Wars. Ricoeur said that it is through evil that mankind is able to experience a disproportionate reach toward virtue as the dominant aspect of human consciousness. The duality of love and hate—does love trump the evil beast? Harrison’s play leads us to pile on additional questions about love—where does it come from and how does it come about that we love in the face of evil? For Dorothea, a chilling presence of love arose in the midst of unspeakable cruelty. The irrationality of evil is an intractable mystery—so, too, with love. In Harrison’s play the audience witnesses the complex struggle to find good in the presence of evil.

Dorothea makes us wonder what any perfectly sane, intelligent, empathetic, stand-up person would do. And, when would they snap—because we all snap. We all talk under the spell of the torturer. Like it or not, there is a Dorothea in most of us. Dorothea’s dilemma becomes our own as the mystery unfolds and there is more than one type of person we have to consider. There may be a Dorothea harbored within but is there an Emanuel Levitz, her disembodied interrogator? Can we own that? Dorothea is not showing signs of remorse. She is not seeking forgiveness. She is merely telling her story. But, what does Emanuel Levitz represent? Phillip X Levine’s haunting voice delivered through a microphone above Dorothea’s lonely chair pulls the story through dark passages and leaves the audience wondering along with Dorothea—what does he really want? Is he an advocate? Is he a compassionate mediator through whom her story will find expression? The juxtaposition of innocence and evil in both characters displays an ambiguity whereby we want to think of ourselves as destined for good but too often experience the inclination toward evil. The audience’s grasp of evil as part of the human condition is challenged throughout I Won’t Bite You.

Later in life Ricoeur relied upon the ability of a person to forgive and forget in order to move forward—to put as much emphasis on the power of forgetting as we do on the power of remembering: “What I do know, however, is that the object of this entire quest merits the beautiful name of happiness.” My own sense of Dorothea’s action is that in all likelihood—given the life that was thrown her way—she died fulfilled, if not downright happy. Is it the happiness of a poorly wired psyche that does not know guilt? Or, is it something else? Clearly, she was unable to forget. Harrison calls her “the payment goodness pays to evil, and in paying it, she is the goodness that overcomes evil.” The final scene leaves the audience to write the denouement in their own hearts and minds.

Susan Alexander Manuso, lives and writes in Greenwich Village and Willow, NY

Photos by Sophie Baker

I Won’t Bite You is written and directed by Carey Harrison and designed by Claire Lambe.

This play runs in repertory with a second play, Rex & Rex, by the same author at the Byrdcliffe Theater in Woodstock on weekends from June 21 through July 7.

Tickets are $20/$18 (65+ & 21–) or $30/$28 if attending both plays.
For Reservations,
email: thewoodstockplayers@gmail.com
or call 845 901 2893

For more about the play and directions to the Byrdcliffe Theater visit the “Up Next” page on Woodstock Players website.