• An Actress, a Director and a Power Struggle

  
   
  
  By MICHAEL SOMMERS
  
  
  “Venus in Fur” is a smart, seriously sexy comedy by David Ives that has steamed up three successive New York playhouses in recent seasons. The George Street Playhouse in New Brunswick, where the play is currently onstage, is among the dozen regional companies that have put it on their 2013 schedules, with good reason.

  The playwright’s serio-comic depiction of an increasingly heated encounter between a theater director and an unknown actress in a rehearsal hall delves into aspects of power, both sexual and psychological, even as it touches on issues of personal identity, literary theory, feminism and mythology.

  Don’t let all that scare you. “Venus in Fur” is a provocatively funny play that begins on a light note, as Thomas, an earnest writer-director, prepares to leave the shabby studio where he has been auditioning actresses for his stage adaptation of “Venus in Fur,” without success. Arriving unexpectedly out of a thunderstorm is Vanda, a brash nobody who claims she has an appointment to read for the leading role.

  Although the cheerfully crass Vanda appears wildly unsuited for the part of a 19th-century aristocrat, she persuades a reluctant Thomas to hear her out. Script in hand, Vanda instantly sheds her brassy manners and magically assumes the cultivated tones and regal bearing of all the Barrymores rolled into one.

  As the actress and the director talk about the text and begin to act it out, the audience learns the essentials of “Venus in Fur,” Leopold von Sacher-Masoch’s scandalous 1870 novel about a European patrician who willingly becomes the slave of an imperious beauty.

  “Basically, it’s S-and-M porn,” says Vanda, while Thomas claims it is serious literature.
  When Vanda and Thomas get deeper into the story’s exotic and erotic role playing — the actress has brought thrift shop clothes for them to dress up in — it becomes apparent that Vanda is taking control of the intimate situation and Thomas is increasingly unable to resist her will.
  
  
  By the time the 90-minute play is over, some may suspect that Vanda is literally not of this world. Others may believe she is simply an extremely manipulative individual. Whichever, it is fun to observe Vanda evolve from a dizzy thespian into a dominating personality. It is also a pleasure to laugh at Mr. Ives’s dialogue and then be compelled by the couple’s fervid power struggles upon a ratty chaise longue.
  The admirable George Street production, which will travel to the Philadelphia Theater Company this month, is directed by Kip Fagan, who recently staged the Off Broadway play “The Revisionist,” with Vanessa Redgrave and Jesse Eisenberg.
  Perhaps working with Ms. Redgrave helped Mr. Fagan to infuse his leading lady here, Jenni Putney, with the surprising refinement that transforms Vanda whenever she enacts the play within the play. Ms. Putney believably achieves Vanda’s initial shift into a higher gear, and from that point on her performance subtly grows in authority.

  Mark Alhadeff, who portrays Thomas, was an understudy in the role in the Broadway production, and he ably traces his character’s double spiral into delicious subjugation. The statuesque Ms. Putney, often clad in little more than a black bustier, a brief leather skirt and steep heels as Vanda, displays a smoldering rapport with Mr. Alhadeff’s shorter, rather scruffy Thomas.

  Mr. Fagan paces the comedy briskly for the most part, but slows down the tempo when Vanda and Thomas face off for the play’s final interludes. The setting for the grubby rehearsal hall, designed by Jason Simms, is a lofty space with brick walls, wood planking and a battered tin ceiling that becomes darkly intimate through Thom Weaver’s lighting. In such persuasive circumstances, “Venus in Fur” proves a seductive entertainment for sophisticated adults.

  
  

  “Venus in Fur,” by David Ives, is at the George Street Playhouse, 9 Livingston Avenue, New Brunswick, through May 18. Information: (732) 246-7717 or gsponline.org.
  
  
  photo by T. Charles Erickson
  
  
   
  
  

• Q & A with Victoria Stewart

  
  Q: In your own words, what is Rich Girl about?
  It’s a romantic comedy about money and the effect it has on relationships. We’re at this point in American history where everyone is looking at what they have and what they don’t have, so I was interested in looking at this one person whose life revolves around money. Eve, the mother character, is a financial guru and she has this job where she thinks and talks about money all the time. I wanted to know how that would affect her personal life.
  
  
  When I was doing research for this, I was really interested in Suze Orman, who’s one of the more popular financial talking heads. One of her key points is how women deal with money—how often women give money away instead of saving, giving it to friends or boyfriends. In many ways I think it’s because women have an anxiety about money; they don’t want to take responsibility for it.
  
  
  Another thing Suze Orman talks about is how the first lessons you learn about money are through your parents’ relationship to their own finances. The play is loosely based on the Henry James novel Washington Square, and James’ female characters often inherit their money, and then they don’t know what to do with all the power that they have. And I feel that that’s true with Claudine, the daughter character. Her wealth has always been this burden; it separates her from other people. But because the wealth is her mother’s, the money defines her but is not part of her.
  
  
  Claudine’s relationship to her wealth couldn’t be more different from her mother’s. Because obviously her mother has gained power from money whereas Claudine’s very passive and can’t figure out what she wants to do with her life—until she finds Henry, and then he’s what she wants to do with her life. It’s the only time she’s ever gone against her mother’s wishes, and it’s the first real choice Claudine has ever made.
  
  
  Q: Did the play come about because of the financial crisis, or was that just a coincidence?
  I started it before the mortgage crisis [in 2008], but I did a huge amount of the work after the crash. Often you write a play because you want to explore something you know nothing about. I’m a pretty typical person with my own finances; I’m lackadaisical about them, and I don’t know as much as I should. So money was something I was interested in exploring as a topic. And then the crash happened and suddenly everybody was obsessed with their 401(k)s and whether or not their lifestyles were sustainable.
  
  
  
  Q: How did you get started as a playwright?
  I was actually a professional stage manager for a long time, right out of college. I’d worked on a lot of new plays with the playwright in the room—plays by Paula Vogel, Naomi Wallace, David Rabe—but writing plays seemed beyond my reach.
  
  So I was working on this Peter Sellars opera in Europe, when out of nowhere, in one week, I got my first idea for a play and my grandfather died, leaving me a little bit of money, just enough to change my life. Suddenly, I could afford grad school. So I made this really funky switch, where I decided, “Okay, I’m going to go to grad school for playwriting.” I wrote the play that I had had the idea for, applied to grad school with that one play, and got into Iowa. And became a playwright!
  
  
  Q: What do you like in a play?
  I’m drawn to any kind of theater that makes me lean forward and wonder what’s going to happen next. And in terms of what I personally like writing, I like writing for certain actors, and I really love writing thorny and complicated characters. I usually start with a character and move outward from there. So that character-driven work really excites me.
  
  
  Partially because I was a stage manager, I have fairly broad taste. I grew up watching a lot of avant-garde theater, so I’m intrigued by that, but I love story, and I love narrative. So plays that can do both of those things—mix a sense of theatricality and a sense of story and narrative—make me really happy.
  
  
   Interview courtesy of the Playwrights' Center, which supported the development of Rich Girl.

• Rave Reviews for Good People

  
  
  "Stunning...Rollicking Humor....
  Theater doesn't get better than this."-Asbury Park Press
   
  
  
  
  
  
  "Important, Timely, and Hilarious"
  -StageMagazine.org
  
  
  "An Outstanding Production"
  -The Star-Ledger
  
  
  "This is a powehouse of a play you shouldn't miss"
  -The Princeton Packet
   
  "Brilliant....Five Star Entertainment"
  -Examiner.com
   
  "It is doubtful that George Street Theater audiences will see a finer contemporary play or experience a more splendid production this season...masterfully directed" 
  - Curtainup.com
  
  "Riveting"
  -Q-onstage
  
  "Great theatre with a great cast"-Out in Jersey.net

   

  
  
  

Read all blog posts ...

Blog Archive

» December
» November
» October
» September
» August
» July
» June
» May
» April
» March
» February
» January

» December
» November
» October
» September
» August
» July
» June
» May
» April
» March
» February
» January

» December
» November
» October
» September
» August
» July
» June
» May
» April
» March
» February
» January

» December
» November
» October
» September
» August
» July
» June
» May
» April
» March
» February
» January

» December
» November
» October
» September
» August
» July
» June
» May
» April
» March
» February
» January

» December
» November
» October
» September
» August
» July
» June
» May
» April
» March
» February
» January

» December
» November
» October
» September
» August
» July
» June
» May
» April
» March
» February
» January