Terms of Endearment has opened at the Clayton Community Theatre. This a story of a young woman beset by an eccentric, over-protective and controlling mother, a philandering husband, and, in the end, a personal existential threat.
But we must interrupt this review to bring you an important message!
The Clayton Community Theatre is highly regarded. Now completing its third decade it has a superlative record of presenting a broad spectrum of high-quality theater including
- Great American classics: The Skin of Our Teeth, View From the Bridge, Inherit the Wind, Born Yesterday, …
- Shakespeare and other historical classics: Twelfth Night, School for Scandal, Lysistrata, …
- Fine modern works like Noises Off, Member of the Wedding, Plaza Suite, …
But this beloved company suddenly faces its own existential threat! After twenty years in the large, comfortable and well-equipped old CBC High School theater they are now looking for a new home. Their landlord “has deemed the latest building-system failure unfixable.”
So they must find storage space, rehearsal and audition space, workshop space, and performance space. Anyone knowing of potential spaces in the vicinity of Clayton, Missouri, is urged to contact the company at:
We now resume our review of Terms of Endearment which opened in the Hotchner Studio Theatre at Washington University. This 2007 play was adapted by Dan Gordon from Larry McMurtry’s 1975 novel of the same title. (The movie adaptation, with Shirley MacLaine and Debra Winger, appeared in 1983). McMurtry was a prolific writer. His wonderful cowboy saga, Lonesome Dove, won a Pulitzer. I was amazed to see that one capable of greatness in that Western genre could write such an epitome of chick-flick stories as Terms of Endearment. But yes, both novels were written by the very same Larry McMurtry. (As screen-writer McMurtry also wrote that other Western genre-buster, Brokeback Mountain.)
But the play, Terms of Endearment, was adapted by Dan Gordon, who is primarily a screen-writer.
In the black-box Hotchner Theatre we see a very minimal set: a bed with a framed Renoir over it, a screen door stage-left. There are many small scenes (as bespeaks a screen-writer), but the only real “scene change” is the swift transforming of a bedroom bed into a hospital bed. The rest is handled with deft pools of light.
Kelsey Belt gives a strong, clear portrayal of Emma—from middle-school chats with her BFF to arguments with her mother, Aurora, to marriage, to children (one, two, three) and to her confrontation with cancer.
Deb Dennert plays Aurora, Emma’s wealthy widowed mother. Ms. Dennert is a familiar face on many local stages, and here gives an intense performance. Aurora vehemently disapproves of her daughter’s choice of husband; she urges Emma not to have a third child, and she desperately digs in her heels against the whole idea of becoming a (terrible thought!) GRANDMOTHER! In a final clutch at avoiding being old, Aurora falls into an odd romantic relationship with her next-door neighbor—who just happens to be a former astronaut. But neither playwright Dan Gordon nor actress Deb Dennert is able to give Aurora any attractive qualities that would encourage our empathy.
The press release tells us that Emma and Aurora love each other—but we, the audience, are given no indication as to why they love each other.
There is much cliché in this script. Jeremy Schnelt does admirable work as Emma’s husband Flap (yes “Flap”). But there’s little in the script to help him make the character three-dimensional. All his denials of misconduct are the utterly expected clichés.
But Flap is richly nuanced when compared with the oncologist. This doctor, supervising Emma’s treatment, is aptly named simply “Doctor”. And his every line is cliché. We know well in advance that, of course, he will refuse Emma the experimental treatment that might save her life. Sean Monarch gave a beautiful performance in School for Scandal last season, but here? The script offers nothing to raise this character above simply “the bad doctor”.
Amie Bossi plays Patsy, Emma’s old school friend. She’s convincing both as an adolescent and as an adult, but much of her conversation with Emma is, again, cliché.
Mark Coble plays the aging astronaut who is a bit of a (young-)womanizer. This character has an odd and honest charm. Coble finds all the comedy and makes it his own.
Throughout the evening a screen above and behind the set shows, from scene to scene, projected texts (like in the old silent movies). These texts contain sentiments that are sweet but have little to do with this story. Some have an almost fortune-cookie quality.
Director Jessica Johns Kelly handles the movement and scene transitions gracefully. But what can one do with a script like this? I’ve not read the novel behind this story, but I’m sure that Larry McMurtry made it rich in personal and local detail. This play has no sense of place (are we even in Texas?), no nuances of personality. One reviewer said of the Broadway production: “It’s like a Cliff’s notes version of a Cliff-notes version of the novel.” Bereft of context, bereft of history, bereft of detail, the play simply fails to engage us.
It continues at the Hotchner Studio Theatre at Wash U through August 2.
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