Paradise Lost

Paradise Lost by Clifford Odets

Directed by Daniel Fish

Seen 3/5/10 at American Repertory Theatre, Loeb Drama Center

There’s nothing wrong with ART’s production of Paradise Lost. It hits all the points it tries to hit, and very easily draws the intended parallels between the 1930s that Clifford Odets writes about and today. It’s also not particularly difficult to imagine a family today having struggles and setbacks of the Gordons; you hear about them in every human interest story on the nightly news, or any time a politician needs a story about “Main Street.” It’s all very believable, all very timely. And all that might even work against the production, because by the time the curtain falls for the final time, it just might not be that interesting to watch anymore.

The story revolves around the Gordon family: Leo (David Chandler), who runs a handbag manufacturing business with a business partner; his wife Clara (Sally Wingert), a driven matriarch who very clearly runs the family; their older son Ben (Hale Appleman), a former Olympic runner who hasn’t really found his place post-Olympics; their daughter Pearl (Therese Plaehn), a quiet piano prodigy; and their younger son Julie (T. Ryder Smith), a financial superstar who has become sickly for reasons unknown. Coming in and out of their lives are an assortment of neighborhood characters that are vague enough to be found anywhere, but specific enough that the audience can point to any of them and say, “I know that guy!” Through three acts we watch Leo’s business spiral, Julie’s health get worse, Ben deal with an uncertain future, and Clara fight to hold everyone together and survive as a family. It’s a pretty stereotypic post-Great Depression story that has gained new relevance in light of the world's recent economic issues.

If I had to choose, I think I’d have to place blame on some design and directorial choices, and maybe on myself for believing too much hype about the director. Director Daniel Fish has a reputation for doing some crazy things, but I feel like that drive only made it about halfway through the production. The design is fairly abstract, and at face value pretty cool. One of the best elements is the use of video projected onto the backdrop behind the performers. Sometimes it’s used for atmospheric effect – the entire cast starts the show by watching the end of a movie together – but most of the time it’s used with live video to give the audience a different perspective on the stage action. That’s especially beneficial because a good deal of the action in Acts I and II take place significantly higher than the audience if you’re seated at floor level, as I was. It’s useful to get a better view of what’s going on off on stage left when the actors themselves are obscured by the dining room table. There’s a particularly good use in Act II as things start to fall apart for Leo Gordon and his business partner. Without spoiling anything, Leo’s partner introduces him to someone who can potentially “fix” their business in a particularly insidious way. The fixer is played by T. Ryder Smith, who also happens to play Leo’s son Julie, but there’s a nice negative filter used on the projected video that allows Smith to portray a much more treacherous nature that he had on his own as Julie, which furthered the distinction between the characters and added to the treacherous atmosphere of the scene.

Beyond that, though, a lot of the technical elements fell a little flat for me. At seemingly random times throughout the play, characters would pick up wireless microphones and use them for dialogue. There are some times when it was very helpful – again with the moments when you couldn’t quite see what was going on over near the wings or upstage – but many times they were used when actors were front and center, and their dialogue didn’t really strike me as needing to be accentuated in that way. It’s very possible I missed something, but it just didn’t work for me.

It also struck me as odd that Fish had all of these out of the box technical elements at work, but his staging itself was very straightforward. There are some seemingly clunky blocking decisions - characters staying onstage long after they should have left, and it isn't clear if their physical presence places them in the scene, or if they are there representing something more abstract. Again, it just doesn't quite mesh with the otherwise relatively straightforward staging. Again, there’s nothing wrong with traditional blocking combined with abstract design, but it seemed to me to draw more attention to what was out of place – the design – than it drew to the story being told. The story is very timely, so one would think you’d want the focus there. It almost seemed as if the ability of the story to draw relevant parallels was taken for granted, and so the creative focus moved elsewhere, but all it did was draw attention off the story and performances, which should have been the stars of the show.

And if you’re paying attention, there are some shining stars here. Clara Gordon, Leo’s wife, is brilliantly portrayed by Sally Wingert. Her performance is very engaging, but it’s also a credit to Odets as well; this is by all definition a modern woman in the 1930s script, something Wingert accentuates with a ferocity that no one else on stage can match. She’s got the independent, speak-her-mind attitude of a flapper out of the ‘20s mixed with an undying dedication to her family that truly convinces the audience that if anyone can keep a family together in light of all the crap thrown at the Gordons, it’s Clara.

Also of note is Karl Bury as Kewpie, Ben Gordon’s best friend who turns out to be not so good for him. Bury has a history on Showtime’s “Brotherhood” and HBO’s “The Sopranos,” both of which he channels for Kewpie’s small-time con personality. He strikes a good balance of clearly being terrible for Ben and this family, but also clearly caring about them. It’s a tough note to hit to put someone you claim as your best friend directly in harm’s way without degrading the friendship to nothing, but Bury does it well, and his guilt in the final act over what happens to Ben is a genuine as it is well-deserved.

Leo’s business partner Sam Katz (portrayed by Jonathan Epstein) and his wife Bertha (Adrianne Krstansky) also rise to distinction thanks to a particularly potent breakdown in the second act. It struck me through the first act that Sam was probably in the most “real” situation in the show, trying to keep Leo’s floundering business afloat, but once you hit the end of the second act you realize that Sam is on much more unstable footing than the Gordon family; the Katz family spiral is much more accelerated and precipitous than the Gordon family’s, and the Katz demise, while in less focus, has as strong an impact as the main story.

The rest of the cast is a little more muddled, though no one is out of place. I’m not sure if the issue lies in performance or writing. At various points throughout the play everyone is given their moment of focus, but there’s such an overwhelming malaise that hangs over the script that it takes a spectacular performance to break through that and be noticed.

The malaise is not misplaced – both the period of the setting and the modern time it alludes to deserve a melancholic attitude. And hope does fight through in the end – once again in the hands of Wingert’s Clara, who stubbornly (in a good way) INSISTS on maintaining her family’s pride, however damaged by tragedy and circumstance it might be. There’s no doubt why ART and Fish chose to preset Paradise Lost now in 2010, but some weakly-written characters and questionable design choices hold it back from being the poignant commentary it might otherwise be.