A Spanish Play: Brush Up Your Pirandello

Perhaps Yasmina Reza's intention was to write the play Chekhov would have written if he thought he was Pirandello.  I can't say for sure.  A Spanish Play, her two-hour long intermissionless reason why you should take full advantage of the lobby's espresso bar before being seated, is one of those plays that sends out an aura of being terribly clever and meaningful, particully in director John Turtorro's gimmick-heavy production at the Classic Stage Company.  But trying to figure out why the playing area is painted in yellow with splatters, streaks and splotches of red, or why there's a cameraman projecting the actors' monologues on the wall (including a visit with Denis O'Hare as he sits on an offstage toilet) at least provides distraction from Reza's plotless, emotionless and unendurably tedious text. (David Ives provides translation from the original French).

The very talented ensemble of O'Hare, Zoe Caldwell, Linda Emond, Larry Pine and Katherine Borowitz (all of whom show admirable commitment to the difficult material) play unnamed actors who are rehearsing what is only referred to as "a Spanish play."  We see snippets of this play – not enough to really decipher a plot – alternating with monologues where the actors give what presumable is intended to be deep insight about themselves, their characters and their profession.  ("An actor who doesn't want to annihilate the writer isn't worth crap.") 

What we can decipher is that Caldwell's character plays Pilar, the mother of two actresses.  One is the celebrity Nuria (Katherine Borowitz), who is rehearsing a Bulgarian play and has a personal crisis when she can't find an appropriate gown to wear at an awards ceremony.  (Costume designer Donna Zakowska steals the show by giving her a pair of outrageously slutty outfits.) 

Emond's character plays the lesser-known actress Aurelia, married to Mariano; a role played by O'Hare's character, who describes him as "an amoral wimp."  ("Amoral is appealing.  But if you add wimp to amoral, wimp's going to win.") 

Despite her beauty, Emond's character longs to play the unattractive Sonia in Chekhov's Uncle Vanya.  Pine plays the actor who appears as Pilar's property manager fiancé, Fernan, who refers to himself as "an Uncle Vanya of our time."  These two references suggest that Reza may be trying to say something about class structure as it applies to actors, but the only apparent theme here involves the old bit about the blurry line between art and reality. 

The play opens with the words, "Actors?  Actors are cowards.  Actors have no guts."  The five of them who signed on to be in A Spanish Play sure shoot that theory to hell. 

Photos by Joan Marcus:  Top:  Zoe Caldwell and Larry Pine

Bottom:  Zoe Caldwell and Denis O'Hare