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Fugue' hits high notes but fails to harmonize

By Michael H. Margolin

The New Theatre Project, the tiny 30-some seat in Ypsilanti, again brings a young playwright's work to theatrical fulfillment. With "Fugue," Audra Lord has chosen a theme – not unlike Sartre's "No Exit" where three people are trapped in a "room" and discover that hell is other people – based on the musical concept of a fugue, wherein two musical lines with the same theme enter separately and play against and with one another.
Four "patients" – subjects? – are in a white room with white chairs and floor. Semi-opaque vinyl curtains separate them from offstage and onstage (neatly originated by Keith Paul Medelis), and the four patients wear shades of grey and white (well done by Ben Stange).
Through a series of scenes, the four characters interact with each other, in sets of two; occasionally they are joined by or led off by their nurse – keeper? – to see the doctor. He wears blue scrubs.
I mention these elements because it is an asset to achieve maximum visual effect which reflects the theme of four characters bound together – and do it simply.
Soon, it becomes clear that each of the characters has the same malady: loss of memory. Lord adds a second dimension, the fugue state or loss of memory which often follows a traumatic incident.
James (Jon Ager) is troubled and angry about his incapacity to remember; Julie (Jamie Weeder) sublimates her feelings by endlessly reproducing a drawing of a boy and is puzzled, mostly, by the obsession; Tina (Linda Rabin Hammell) twice the age of the other characters, is ebullient about her memory loss – each day being a new experience as if memory loss were a blessing; finally, there is Princess Stephanie (Keith Paul Medelis) who, in a wig and stiletto-heeled boots, is a mix of male and female. Perhaps in the past, she says, she was a major rock star. Maybe you saw me perform, she asks wistfully.
As the characters interact, we are given hints that they are related in the past as well as in the present – as when Julie recoils from James' touch or when both women seem to respond to recognition of a child.
James is the lynchpin: It is his driving anger, despondency and fear of what he may see in his past – his capacity for violent behavior often exploding on the small stage and ricocheting into the audience, both present frustration and hints of previous behavior.
There are many moments of humor, too, most often from Tina with her bungled recall of words and concepts and her often charming – and irritating – way of simply opening her mouth and saying whatever comes into her mind.
But Lord has a more serious purpose: One of them is to tell us that we cannot escape our past; another, that I wish she had developed more, is what must it feel like to live without your memory, and start each day afresh, like Tina. Would you welcome its return?
Ultimately, after about an hour and one half, there is a final curtain, but, to my way of thinking, no resolution.
A play such as this cries out for catharsis, recognition and the experience of the feelings accompanying it. Lord has deprived the characters and the audience of that vital moment that makes everything that goes before worth sitting still for. Is the recognition scene between Princess and Tina enough to bring closure? No. This provocative drama of ideas simply ends without, as in musical fugues, a resolution as the themes come together.
Still, there are pleasures in watching and listening – it is an intense and provocative journey.
Not the least reason for our interest is the cast, uniformly good. At the top of the list is Ager, who plumbs depths of feeling – mostly angry or sorrowful or violent – that give credence to our suspicion of very bad things happening in the unremembered past. (The only caveat: He seems uncomfortable with his physicality constantly adjusting his shirt or pants, which takes him out of character.)
Jamie Weeder brings an honesty and freshness to Julie; she seems warm, real. As Tina, Hammell, is a verbal gymnast executing difficult tricks with ease and drawing the audience's laughter in response.
Finally, Medellis as Princess Stephanie, gives his character grace, but, I wonder, could it have gone a bit deeper, away from camp, and under the skin?
Finally, as the Nurse, Dan Johnson gives his lines a dry, witty reading, inflected at just the right level of tone and volume. He makes a thankless role meaningful.

REVIEW:
'Fugue'
The New Theatre Project at Mix Studio Theatre, 130 W. Michigan Ave., Ypsilanti. Friday-Sunday through Dec. 18. $15. 734-645-9776. http://www.thenewtheatreproject.org

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