REVIEW: Trinity astutely challenges societal norms in 'Private'
BY JAMES A. MEROLLA / STAFF THEATER WRITER
Friday, February 22, 2008 12:49 PM EST
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| Janice Duclos and Stephen Thorne appear in a scene from Trinity Rep's 'Some Things Are Private.' (Photo by Mark Turek) |
PROVIDENCE - What is art? What is pornography? What is public? What is private? Where do you draw the line?
These are the five essential questions (there are 100 others) raised by the fine, indelible world premiere of "Some Things Are Private," which opened last week at Trinity Repertory Company.
Created by Deborah Salem Smith and Laura Kepley - the same duo who wrote the well received world premiere "Boots on the Ground" two years ago for Trinity about Rhode Island troops stationed in Iraq and their families at home - this 85-minute provocateur again immerses itself into today's headlines: What does the local community (or any community) think is appropriate art to display? Where does that art cross the lines of decency or someone's personal boundaries? What should be censored? And, perhaps most telling of all, when does art trespass on someone's own privacy?
There are three narrators who set the scene and play various small parts in the telling - museum employees, a guard, a governor, a mother, a daughter, art critics, interviewers, photo editors, a fashion icon, etc. - handled ably by Janice Duclos, Rachael Warren and Richard Donnelly.
They examine and explore the work of renowned American photographer Sally Mann, played by stalwart Anne Scurria with her usual grace and dignity. All of Mann's dialogue - how she grew up, who she is, how and why she takes photographs, what each photo was, is, should be, isn't, never was, cannot be, etc. - is lifted directly from interviews the Virginia artist gave to various media outlets over the last three decades, trying to explain, illuminate and, ultimately, defend her often controversial work.
This actual accounting of her own life gives the work a kind of docu-drama feel, but, surprisingly, the play doesn't read like speeches. Mann's interviews placed into Scurria, feel like actual dialogue. It works.
The fictional element is the character Thomas Kramer, created out of the air as a sort of big city everyman, (well, a very successful New York City attorney everyman), to be the immediate foil to Mann.
He is played brilliantly and so humanly by the always good Stephen Thorne.
Kramer is our voice, the voice of the public, bringing his own personal experiences to bear. His wife convinces him to use her huge annual bonus of $17,000 to buy a single Mann photograph of trees. Mortified, he consents. She is killed by a car. He is alone to raise their daughter and feels inadequate in doing so. He remembers the joy the photo brought his wife and wants to buy another.
He visits a museum where Mann's work is on display, thinking they are more landscapes. He is stunned by the images in the exhibit - Mann's own children, nude, posed or alit in provocative ways. One looks beaten, another is naked between the legs of a much older, unidentified man, another child's male genitals are smeared in a gooey dark liquid.
Kramer now becomes immersed personally in the same national debate over Mann's work. Is this pornography? Does it sexualize the child? The viewer? Kramer engages Mann in this discourse. If the viewer sees the photos as sexual, the problem is in the viewer, she says. She's just taking purely natural family photos of her bucolic, wide open life on her 400-acre farm in Appalachia.
"There is a thin line between art and exploitation," a critic recites from the Los Angeles Times. "The issue here isn't nudity, but motherhood," Mann argues. Her work is subjective. It polarizes.
Time magazine names her America's Best Photographer, while a governor in Virginia bans her work "on public ground."
"You want me to see danger," Kramer argues, claiming the images manipulate his mind and senses. "I have no control over how a person sees my art," Mann counters. "Pornography," says the lawyer. "Tenderness," is the rejoinder; of family, motherhood, an intimate 40-year marriage, her life.
The play raises and asks more questions than it could ever answer in a dozen lifetimes. It dares us to look at Mann's work and ask hard questions of the art, but even harder questions of ourselves. It forces us to think; but, even greater, makes us feel.
Where you stand on these issues very often depends, literally, on where you sit. And how. The play challenges the values and tastes of our society in a meaningful and prescient way.
As one character says after we view an absolutely amazing Mann photo called "The Perfect Tomato," - which just happens to have an absolutely angelic nude girl dancing in its center - "It gave us a sense of beauty."
Ultimately, and most importantly, this piece reminds us that art doesn't give us all the answers; it makes life so interesting that we must be eternally grateful that someone is asking the questions.
"Some Things Are Private" runs through March 23 at Trinity Repertory Company, 201 Washington St., Providence. Tickets range from $20-$60. Call 401-351-4242 for tickets.
