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Cabin Fever (North Fork) |
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| Review The New York Times, Sunday, May 30, 1999 Theatre Review – Treating Dysfunction With Sugar By Alvin Klein Every wacky family is wacky in its own way. But if you've seen enough plays about the genetically dysfunctional, they're all alike. In “North Fork,” by Mark Dunn, at the New Jersey Repertory Company, the very loud Beckles reunite for an upsetting Memorial Day weekend in the country. Dad is drunk and Mama is dead; their daughters and Great-Aunt Tammy have come back to the family cabin in the Texas hills for the first time since Mama died. Conversations with Aunt Tammy take place through the bathroom door; the knob came off, and she's locked in. Outside, Karen, the oldest daughter, is manic, controlling, enabling and married to Wally, a good man who never appears because he never has a day off. Cesca, who has a broken arm, is manic and married to Mike, a bad man who pushes her into glass coffee tables. He appears several times, in calculated turns of plot, around all the plot holes. Pidge lives in a group home for schizophrenics; somehow she, too, pops in. Georgine is the youngest of all and weighs the most, but everyone is gorging on Oreos, Hershey Kisses, Mallomars and Pecan Sandies because Karen bought bags full. By the end of Act I, Aunt Tammy is let out to propel the play into sentimental overdrive. At least things quiet down when she's out. Momentary calm and natural affection are reached only when they all remember Mama. Her eccentricity was evidently passed on to Pidge. And Dad wooed her with Necco Wafers. Otherwise, Pidge is the sole voice of reason among the ostensibly sane. “I may be insane, but I'm not stupid,” is her only understatement. At first, one can't help wincing when a black actor comes on as Mike, the play's one “bad” character in an otherwise all-white cast. His very entrance foreshadows evil and violence. In one all too brief scene, late (but not too late) in the second act, the playwright allows for Mike's redemption, and in the role, Johnny Kitt embraces the quiet moment as he seizes all the enraged ones, in one of the play's two first-rate performances. Dana Benningfield as Pidge, who is not a member of Actor's Equity, is the other winner. “North Fork” is all set up for Pidge to be its emotional as well as rational center and truth-teller, but it would have been easy for a director and an actress to make the character mawkish. Ms. Benningfield's intelligence and delicacy are affecting and real. The interplay between the two actors is lovely. For all the unwieldiness in the writing and the staging, the director, SuzAnne Barabas, gets to the payoff. Throughout, Andy Hall's finely detailed set design is so evocative that you can smell the cedar. As before, the fledgling theater's technical work is exceptional. It's too bad Mr. Dunn fails to let it be. The play, and Pidge's role, are diminished by a coy epilogue in which she wraps up the plot, telling the audience, “You deserve to know how things turned out.” No, we don't. Mr. Dunn is cavalier about mental illness – and genetics – not just about play construction. Besides, the Beckle family's real problem goes undiagnosed. No one is crazy; no one is bad; everyone is just having a sugar attack. But for once, the sound of crinkling candy wrappers is coming from the stage. |
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The Star-Ledger, May 26, 1999 N.J. Repertory handles wrong ‘Fork' with Grace Gabor and SuzAnne Barabas, the executive producer and artistic director of New Jersey Repertory Company in Long Branch , have again lovingly mounted a world premiere in their new theatre. But sad to say, for the third straight time, the play isn't as good as the production. Mark Dunn's “North Fork” takes us to a family's summer cabin overlooking the Guadalupe River in Texas . Here, we meet the Beckles, headed by the alcoholic Aubrey. And why wouldn't he drink, given that his four daughters give him more trouble than Tevye's five ever did. Karen, the oldest, feels that since Mama died, she should run the show. Georgine, the chubby one, has never met a snack food she didn't like. Cesca arrives without her abusive husband Michael, but with a broken hand. And then there's Pidge, who just escaped from a mental institution, intent on punishing Michael for all he's done to Cesca. “This is supposed to be a happy place,” moans Cesca, as kidnapping, fistfights, attempted murder and gunshots ring out. No wonder that Aunt Tammy, who's been inadvertently locked in the bathroom all morning, drinks Pepto Bismol straight from the bottle. After two hours of this chaos, Pidge suddenly turns to address the audience – a device that hadn't been used until now. “There should be a third act to this play,” she tells us, before quickly wrapping up everyone's story in a sentence or two. That's bad playwriting, as well as inaccurate reporting: What this play does not need is a third act. All this takes place on Memorial Day weekend, which may serve theatergoers in issuing far fewer invitations to their homes on the shore this summer. That's what makes Dunn's play unlikable: he's more interested in malevolence than compassion. His main intent is to mock his characters, so we'll all get a good laugh at their expense. But once again, Andy Hall has meticulously put a handsome and well-furnished set on the small New Jersey Rep stage. Though SuzAnne Barabas has directed everyone well enough, she coaxed a particularly good performance from Dana Benningfield as Pidge. Here's a character, like so many in Shakespeare, that may seem foolish but is astute. Benningfield looks like Peter Pan, though she's much more malicious, pleased at punching out those who offend her. When she crosses her arms, she displays confidence – as well as a hint that she's used to having those arms strait-jacketed in front of her. It's one of the more beguiling performances of the season. All in all, one must credit the Barabases for following their convictions and giving care and concern to their plays. Theatergoers, though, should have a better time of it when Kim Hunter, the Oscar winner from “A Streetcar named Desire,” does that old chestnut, “On Golden Pond,” here in August. |
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Two River Times – May 1999 “North Fork” Headed in the Right Direction by Philip Dorian Fancy this: Monmouth County becoming a respected center of New Jersey 's professional theatre scene. And the latest proof of the pudding is in a small venue on Long Branch 's lower Broadway. After seeing, on consecutive weekends, Two River Theatre Company's “Noises Off” and New Jersey Repertory Company's “North Fork,” I, for one, doubt it not. The former play has ended its run, but you can still catch “North Fork” until June 6, and it is eminently worth catching. I recommend you take immediate steps to secure your ticket to this brand new play. Playwright Mark Dunn showed promise with “Belles,” produced locally in 1997 by StoneGate Artists; he makes his mark and fulfills the promise with “North Fork.” Not only is the play itself expertly crafted, NJ Rep's production is outstanding in every regard. Director SuzAnne Barabas takes Dunn's witty and wise material and guides an excellent cast to uniformly praiseworthy performances. In the wake of the company's prior offerings, two plays of lesser merit, it's hard to overstate the quality of “North Fork.” Is it a comedy, as the press release claims? Perhaps. Certainly there are a lot of laughs. But there's poignant drama here as well. In a riverside cabin in Texas hill country, we're at the Beckle family reunion on Memorial Day weekend. Three sisters join their father for the reunion. Their mother has died, and Dad finds solace in steady sips of bourbon. A fourth sister, recently released from a psychiatric facility, now lives in a “group home” and is not expected to join the party. So honest are the characters, so smoothly are their relationships revealed, that we never doubt their reality. One sister is in an abusive marriage; one is habitually bossy; the youngest is a candy and junk food addict. When #4 does show up unexpectedly, resentments surface, recriminations erupt, reminiscences flow. Sparks fly as they jockey for control; they bicker and jibe and fall alternately out of grace and into each other's arms. About halfway through the first act, the actresses Dana Benningfield, Sue Gisser, Yvonne Marchese and Christine Todino start to look alike, so believable are they as sisters. All four are wonderful – different from each other, but linked by a background we discover as naturally as if we'd spent years with them. Ms. Benningfield is particularly impressive as troubled Pidge, who might just be the sanest one of all; hers is a brave and full-out performance which never strays into excess. Director Barabas has insisted on restraint in the face of some pretty outrageous behavior, and it works. She's an actor's director; performers do their best work under her guidance. Both men in the play, Steve Carroll as the beleaguered father and Johnny Kitt, especially effective as Mike, victimizer and victim in one, lend new significance to the cliché “less is more.” Meryl Harris is admirable as Aunt Tammy, who spend the first act locked in the bathroom. As well-directed and acted as “North Fork” is, it's the writing that most impresses me. Everything we need to know about the characters and the situation comes out of uncontrived dialogue, which is consistently original and flowing. A daughter on her mother's death: “Her departure was very badly timed.” Another, reflecting on her snack: “Eating Junior Mints is like eating candy and brushing your teeth at the same time.” A father's plaintive query: “Are you on your medication?” “No, I'm on holiday.” And there are a couple of lines unintelligible due to a mouthful of Pecan Sandies. That's good writing. Andy Hall deserves his own paragraph. His set designs, the many I've seen, are always evocative. His creativity enhances every play he designs. This one, a comfortable cabin living room which he must needs be on a hill and also provide for some half-obscured activity, is no exception. “North Fork” does have some rough edges: Aunt Tammy stuck so long just a door-jimmy away? Uh-uh. It's comical, yes; but, unlike the rest of the play, farcical. And there's the ending. I'm not giving anything away, but I hope Mr. Dunn reconsiders the unnecessary epilogue. His instinctive ending is obvious. Go with it. Trust the Beckle girls to carry on after we've left them; trust the audience Act three is the rest of life. |
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