One line stands
out above the rest for me in Sarah Ruhl’s DEAR ELIZABETH, her play in
letters from Elizabeth Bishop to Robert Lowell and back again. It will not
leave my head. It’s an earthshaking understatement in the script but it
resonates even more today: “There are so few [poems] in the world now.” I firmly
believe that if the world had more art in it, wars would cease.
I’m intrigued
that this play (and this format) has left me so moved, even a day later.
Director A. Nora Long’s lovely, surprisingly clever production for Lyric Stage
(through Nov. 9th) is a slow starter. Once you get accustomed to
both characters using the same playing space, although they may be a continent
apart, you get into the rhythm of the piece. Like A.R. Gurney’s wildly
successful LOVE LETTERS, the form presupposes that the truth is fully revealed
in correspondence. And like LOVE LETTERS, the relationship flowers on paper,
not so much in person.
The beauty of
DEAR ELIZABETH lies in the raw revelations of true friendship. We’re privy to
information which the writers didn’t share with anyone but each other.
(However, the two celebrated poets did save their letters, after all, knowing
scholars would be researching their work.) Sometimes you feel like a voyeur,
learning about Lowell’s
breakdowns. You’re embarrassed and at the same time you feel very close to the
character(s) to know what anguish lies behind the verse…and saddened that the
medical establishment couldn’t properly treat depression back then.
For me, though, there just isn’t enough poetry
in the play, especially in Act I. The stakes are higher in Act II, as the two
grow older…and Act II contains my favorite poem, Bishop’s “The Art of Losing.”
Mind you, it’s not for the faint of heart. (I cry just thinking about it but I
must say that Laura Latrielle as Bishop sticks it like a champion gymnast.)
One might even
make the case that the letters are poetry of sorts: witty, humorous musings on
their contemporaries, on their difficult romantic relationships and on their
own rivalry as esteemed literary figures. She will suggest a better descriptive
for a poem he’s sent. He urges her to write her way out of a funk. Latrielle
manages to convey a no-nonsense, proto feminist confidence while at the same
time, a deep fragility. Ed Hoopman makes Lowell
an elegant, gentleman poet, a man who never sacrifices charm even at the depths
of despair.
One of the
definite pluses of the production is Shelley Barish’s rustic Maine/Yaddo/ and
everywhere in between set with hidden delights to illustrate a scene or
accentuate a metaphor (It may be a simile, I can’t remember). And Karen
Perlow’s ending for the play is simply perfection.
