BWW Reviews: SCR's 'THE LANGUAGE ARCHIVE' Attempts To Translate Love

There exists this long-standing unscientific notion... a stereotype that has never truly been proven. Yet time and again, the behavioral pattern is constantly corroborated-in the school yard, in office cubicles, and even in the dating pool: ultra-smart, highly intelligent people are somehow, coincidentally, the most socially-awkward citizens within a given population. And when it comes to communicating about love... well, let's just say that (often anyway) these bright, brilliant minds are surprisingly out of touch, ineffective and emotionally obtuse. Their confidence in the classroom or in the lab somehow dissolves once emotion gets in the way. Such is the supposition posed by Julia Cho's effectively thought-provoking world premiere play THE LANGUAGE ARCHIVE, now on stage at South Coast Repertory (thru April 25). A comedy masquerading as a complex series of dramatic acts of miscommunications, the play sets out to illustrate the perception that people-especially seemingly smart ones-may have amazing dictionaries in their brains, but their owners can't seem to get them to open up its pages once matters of the heart enter the picture. Is love a universal language or just universally confusing?

Right from the start, the characters break the fourth wall by telling the audience their truthful feelings. Why? Because, obviously, they are apprehensive to speak them with each other. It's not a new thing... keeping one's true emotions in check. There's fear, self-doubt, and a heaping amount of trepidation that keeps people from generally speaking their mind. But for our smart protagonists, is this a case of over-filtering or just an honest-to-goodness loss for words?

George (convincingly-cast Leo Marks) tells the audience that he's an accomplished linguist, a man who studies languages for a living. He specializes in the archiving of dying languages for posterity. Yet his success in his line of work can't seem to trickle down to his home life, where his domestically-resigned wife Mary (Betsy Brandt) is noticeably incommunicative and deeply sad. On many an occasion, George has witnessed his wife devastatingly sobbing over a sink of dishes, to his utter bewilderment. For her part, Mary leaves randomly-placed scribbles of her personal musings for George to find, hoping that her husband can read between the lines, realize her true feelings, and just... say something. Ultimately, Mary-the only one truly controlled and in touch with her feelings-acts on her impulses and decides to leave George and their monotonous marriage behind. George is desperate to keep Mary, but is rendered utterly speechless, failing to construct even the simplest of sentences to convey how much he loves his wife. His supposed textbook expertise with words, as it turns out, fails him at the very moment he needs it. A recurring idea emerges: "No amount of talk will bring back what is already gone."

To distract himself from the failures of his home life, George retreats to the language institute where he works (and thrives). Unaware (of course) that his assistant Emma (Laura Heisler) is actually crushing on him, George attacks the task at hand. Again, communication of real feelings is subverted by the socially awkward-Emma is lovestruck and relies on the guilty pleasure of a comforting embrace or a shared intellectual hypothesis from her unrequited paramour. To impress her boss and further their connection, Emma enrolls in a class to learn Esperanto, but struggles with it because, as observed by her instructor, she is incapable of effectuating the emotional heft required to "feel" the language. Only when Emma finally surrenders to her true desires, she is told, will the language genuinely permeate her soul.

Together with Emma's assistance, George is in the process of archiving the dying Elloway dialect, by way of two of its remaining reciters, that have been flown in just to be recorded for posterity: Resten (Tony Amendola) and his wife Alta (Linda Gehringer). The elderly couple walks in, dressed in what can only be assumed is their native attire (a hybrid of Russian immigrant travel wear mixed with Von Trapp family window draperies) only to surprisingly break out into a fiery, vile-spewing argument in broken English. It is at this moment that the insult-heavy sparring match finally jolts the play to reveal its advertised comedic undertones, which have been bubbling under its metaphor-laden start all this time.

Their hilarious exchange is, as explained by the dueling geriatric couple, conducted in English because their language is dead, and that English-a rather angry language-is perfectly suitable when having, well, an angry argument. Elloway, as it turns out, is a poetic language reserved for those who know love. Yet, at least for this audience member, the couple's spiritEd Battle highlights an interesting overarching theme: the voice of passion. On the surface, the argument-as petty as it may sound-may have been filled with hatred and insults, but it also indicates that Resten and Alta still have passion for each other. Unlike the other characters in this richly-layered play, Resten and Alta's arguments are filled with fiery purpose. George and Mary, on the other hand, have long since abandoned their drive for fighting, resorting to muddled silence and-in Mary's case-quietly weeping to one's self. The spark has been extinguished for quite some time, and their marriage has wilted into a passionless routine. Despite being tied to another person, both George and Mary are trapped in loneliness. By the second act, when Mary finds a new passion that she loves and dives in wholeheartedly, life seems new and exciting once more. In her newfound solitude, she is content instead of lonely.

As George, Marks is terrific as the anxious, nebbishy, tongue-tied "word nerd." Brandt, in a nicely nuanced performance, appropriately earns empathy as Mary. Her second act transformation is beguiling. Heisler is expertly awkward and mousy, while scene-stealers Amendola and Gehringer (who also double as other periphery characters throughout the play) pepper their scenes with great enthusiasm and the regal expertise of seasoned character actors.

Despite a few perplexing moments that don't quite fit the overall tone of the play (some scenes, such as the unexpectedly virile turn of our elderly couple in the hospital, feel like a cheap laugh), THE LANGUAGE ARCHIVE is a successful dramedy that's more an exercise for the audiences' brains than for their hearts (ironic, since the play itself asks its characters to look beyond intellect in favor of emotional connections). With all these different themes hovering above the play's richly-appointed bookshelves-of-knowledge set, one can only surmise that this production has the words "Very Important Piece" emblazoned all over it, and rightly so. Cho's eloquent writing-paired with a superb ensemble cast-challenges its audience to think beyond the periphery of the play's soap operatic story mechanizations to realize what no words can convey: more often than not, the things we don't say speaks volumes of how we truly feel. In our daily dealings with the people around us, most of the time, words are meaningless without much emotion backing them up.

Grade: A-

Photos by Henry DiRocco/SCR: Top - Tony Amendola, Leo Marks and Linda Gehringer. Bottom - Leo Marks and Betsy Brandt.

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Julia Cho's THE LANGUAGE ARCHIVE at South Coast Repertory (continuing through April 25) stars Leo Marks, Betsy Brandt, Laura Heisler, Tony Amendola and Linda Gehringer. Directed by Mark Brokaw, this world premiere production was commissioned and produced by New York's Roundabout Theatre Company by special arrangement. Recently the play was the recipient of the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize.

Tickets to THE LANGUAGE ARCHIVE can be purchased online at www.scr.org, by phone at (714) 708-5555 or by visiting the box office at 655 Town Center Drive in Costa Mesa. Performances continue through April 25. Ticket prices range from $20 to $65.

Discounts are available for full-time students, patrons 25 years of age and under, educators, seniors and groups of 10 or more. There will be an ASL-interpreted performance on Saturday, April 24, at 2:30 p.m.

POST-SHOW DISCUSSIONS: Tuesday, Wednesday, April 7 & Tuesday, April 13. Discuss the play with members of the cast during free post-show discussions led by South Coast Repertory's literary team.

South Coast Repertory is located at 655 Town Center Drive in Costa Mesa, at the Bristol Street/Avenue of the Arts exit off the San Diego (405) Freeway in the Folino Theater Center, part of the Segerstrom Center for the Arts. Parking is available off Anton Blvd. on Park Center Drive.

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