Princeton University’s Theatre Intime shines with this brutally honest play about the terminally ill.
By: Stuart Duncan
Michael Cristofer’s 1977 Pulitizer Prize-winning drama, The Shadow Box, is a challenge for any group.
The work, which also swept the Tony Awards, is set in a hospice for the terminally ill and focuses on three families, each facing the impending death of a loved one. Moreover, it is written with brutal honesty, covering choices from denial to intellectualization, direct confrontation to fantasy. It is not a play for the weak-kneed.
It is with a mixture of surprise, awe and pleasure that I tell you the current revival by Theatre Intime, in its little gem of a theater on the Princeton University campus, is exceptional. Directed by sophomore David Brundige, with obvious passion and deep understanding, it introduces four freshmen in its cast of nine, blending them seamlessly with tested veterans.
We visit three cottages on the grounds of a large hospital, apparently somewhere in California. In the first is a typical working-class family. Joe (John Portlock) is handling his fate with humor and dignity, but his wife, Maggie (Heather Morr) is in deep denial, refusing even to enter the building. Moreover, she has failed to tell the couple’s 14-year-old son, Steve (Jeremy Chan), about the situation, so he blithely carries on like a young teen-ager, unaware.
The second cottage is more complicated. Brian (stunningly played by newcomer Ben Rice-Townsend) fancies himself as a writer/poet and has faced his illness with all of the vocabulary at his control. Nevertheless, he shakes from fear in his moments of true reality. His partner, Mark (Matt Leffel), watches helplessly from the sideline. The situation is thoroughly shaken by the arrival of Brian’s ex-wife, Beverly (Elizabeth Berg, who handles the role excitingly and in the process almost steals the evening), wild as always.
In cottage number three, Felicity (Barbara Luse) faces her end in a confused dream, waiting for her long-dead daughter to show up, while verbally abusing her second daughter, Agnes (Melissa Galvez), who serves with anguish tempered by determination and love.
This production, with a set design by Evren Odcikin and nice lighting by Sarah Rodriguez, complements both words in the show’s title. The ill spar with death, boxing at the shadows of their fears, gradually bringing them under control. The shadows never fade completely, always threatening to denigrate the past, even while hiding the future.
The opening-night audience was small, reflecting the fact that, despite the plethora of awards, The Shadow Box is seldom staged and therefore largely unheralded. Make no mistake, although the laughs are few and weak, and the wounds open and indeed sore, it is the Intime’s best work in several years. And we have all those freshmen to look forward to in the coming years.
The Shadow Box continues at the Hamilton Murray Theater, Princeton University, Nov. 15-17. Performances: Thurs.-Fri. 8 p.m.; Sat. 2, 8 p.m. Tickets cost $12; less for seniors and students. For information, call (609) 258-1742.