The Timely Review - The Matchmaker, Opening Night
Thornton Wilder is, apparently, a famous playwright. As a philistine, I’ve only somewhat heard the name. And as an only-recently-committed “see every play every year” kind of guy, I did not catch Our Town, Thornton Wilder’s more famous play, when last it was at APT some years back. I kick myself for that. Our Town, being played in Our Town? What could be more right?
But no matter. I'm sure it will come again. APT plays the hits on some rotation, and Our Town is, I gather, a hit. But The Matchmaker is a deeper cut than I can expect myself to know - and so I went to the play, on opening night, knowing just the right amount of nothing, as I prefer.
This year, I bought my tickets early, and as I bought them for one man alone, the staff found ample opportunities to use my single purchase to fill in the gaps in the seating chart, where a five seat row had already been claimed by two and two, leaving seat B403 for me, for both As You Like It and The Matchmaker.
I've never sat so close at the outdoor theater. Often, I prefer to sit way up in the back corner - but after these two openings, I may be a convert to the Best Seats in the House.
They are all just there, the actors, large and above you. You can read their facial expressions, and can imagine, simultaneous with the play, the rehearsal, where a bunch of humans spent long days and late nights attempting, rehearsing, modifying and back-to-the-drawing-boarding every purposeful stride, every brisk twist, every inflected exclamation.
It never really hit me before, how improvised a play might be. Different spacing between two characters on a given run may change the meaning of an interaction. Sometimes, someone jumbles a line, and the prescribed response might not fit, but the next moment must come.
It's a lot like music in that respect. At our recent show in the barn, Alys likened like to like. “All the actors in the room know,” she said - for of course, a substantial contingent of actors attended, “that you are in your bag when you have no idea what's coming next.” When a scene breaks down - or, more accurately, breaks apart, and yet can be, but might not be, swirled back together, live, by the actors on stage.
Music can break down, too. I may stumble in contemporaneous communication with my fellow musicians - and yet, the next beat comes, and the next, and the next, just as sure as time marches on, for that's all it is, a beat, the marking of a march. You must play hackysack with time, juggle it back together, or into a new together, but into coherence nonetheless.
And to do that, not with melody and rhythm, but with human interaction? Well, I could see how that would be exhilarating. And that's maybe the biggest difference in sitting in the Best Seats in the House: you can see how exhilarated everyone is, how alive, how aware. Even when playing sleep, or inattentive, or aloof, or irrelevant.
When up close, your eye and face are jerked across the stage, from here to there, the ping and pong of the attention ball, an implement in the director's toolkit. In this fast paced play, sitting so up close, with the angles of perspective doing their trick, my attention flickered from here to there, yonder and behind. Yes, behind - we were forewarned that the actors would use the aisles during tonight's performance, and I was delighted to be startled and surprised by developments behind me.
I gather that there is a distinction among those who sit up close, between those who turn to look at the action behind them, and those who stare forward. I, of course, turned to look, and I am flabbergasted that any wouldn't. A character enters through the aisle, in pomp or circumstance, a tense interaction occurs at a threshold. Our attention is meant to be drawn to them, to see the Duke confront the Prince, the lovers reunite. You don't want to see it? You would prefer to stare straight ahead at a largely unmoving cast of characters, themselves staring in rapt attention at what all other patrons of the arts now see? You do get to, you know? You get to turn and look. You do not have to stare straight ahead, and only straight ahead, blessed and cursed as you are, sitting in the Best Seats in the House.
Maybe a lot of people have back or neck pain, and are forgiven. But it seemed like I was significantly in the minority as a looker. Are any of these people staring forward out of some principle? I can't imagine.
One other benefit of sitting so close is that the actors can see you. And, given that I know many of them, I'm often curious as to whether they do see me. Just because I'm sitting in seat B403, the second row, right in the middle, doesn't mean that they actually look. In fact, I imagine it's best not to. And so, I am delighted when an actor I know makes eye contact with me, and gets tripped, just for the briefest of moments, by a known hazard in the acting profession: seeing someone you know in the audience.
It happened during the fun and goofy interstitial train song and dance, when most of the ensemble was in the aisle, two seats away from me. I think I got Patrick Budde and Ray Huth to crack a little bit, beaming as I was, as they did a gleeful and delighted dance. I imagine during rehearsal, you're doing it to no one, and during the performances, you might not know anyone in those first several rows. The people to whom you perform are abstract humans. Then, someone you know well, whose barn you've been in, is sitting there, grinning like an idiot at you, waiting to catch your glance.
The stakes of the moment were low - again, a silly song and dance - which I appreciated. I sometimes worry that someone might catch sight of me during a sad and crucial moment, and will have to stifle a grin. Perhaps this is why I sit in the back, so as not to impose upon the people that I know.
During crucial moments, during speeches and monologues, when the actors are not looking at each other, but are instead staring, out of the page, at the watcher, the hearer, the observer, themselves… their gaze is cast out, often at a horizontal level. And because saying something is more believable when it is said to someone, they may even pick an abstract human to be the someone, that we can all imagine ourselves being. When seated in the Best Seats in the House, there's a real possibility that that someone is you.
On two occasions, said possibility became real, and I found myself locked in eye contact with an actor.
First, with Triney Sandoval, as he spoke from his perspective, the man whose match must be made. He briskly summed his life, raised the specter of his wife, and looked to me. The air hummed, for a time that felt not long, but dense. I knew what he would say, I was locked in with him, remembering a well worn fact of life once more. Out of the space between us, resolved the word, “dead”. It was unsettling, and vitalizing. I felt implicated in the play, parableized, my own particular circumstances blending with my own unknown future.
The second came at the end of the play, when Tracy Michelle Arnold, the titular matchmaker, prepared to match herself to the man in need of matching. Herself widowed, and speaking to her dead husband, she asked for his blessing in remarriage. She stared straight at me. Would you walk me down the aisle? Would you give me away?
These are the bookend tones of the play. Why must a match be made? And will we make the match? Spoken to all, to me. A real Truman Show moment.
I asked them about it, these actors, at the Slowpoke after the show. Triney said he saw me in that moment. Tracy, night having fallen, had not.
Ray definitely did, he told me gleefully. Patrick Budde, more coyly, did as well.
But enough about me. Let's talk about the play and its performance.
The Matchmaker is big and light and funny, aforementioned heavy moments notwithstanding. The small roles get to be big, the big roles, even bigger, exaggeration constant (I exaggerate). Sticks are slapped, and I was laughing throughout. Everyone gets what they want in the end, and you're just about sure of it the whole time.
The production and performance are classic APT (remember the Tony). Everything is a joy to look at, the fine detailing of the set, the bold period costuming. Can you imagine a time when you might have just run into people wearing this, on the street? When you might have worn these clothes yourself? I tend to opt for “nondescript functional modern”, personally. It would be interesting to try on one of these costumes one day.
As usual, four performances to note, two by two.
Colin Covert. Our straight man protagonist. He's 33 and has never been on a date. Difficult to imagine today, from such a well adjusted fellow, but believable, anthropologically, of the past. Colin’s earnestness sells it to our modern sensibilities. This play was written 70 years ago, and set 70 years before that - we're talking multiple human lifetimes of forgotten ways it was.
Phoebe Gonzalez. I love seeing Phoebe play a character having a good time. She's bright and quick, and believably enthused. Here she gets to put on a devilish grin and conjure a night to remember on someone else's dime - and fall in love to boot.
Triney Sandoval. A sputtering and outraged man, taking everything more seriously than anyone. Apoplectic. I love to see Triney this way. He's got just enough Yosemite Sam in him to make me eagerly believe.
And, of course, Tracy Michelle Arnold. Wow, is she good. Every facial expression, every movement, is so intentional, yet off the cuff. When she plays a powerful person, it requires no suspension of disbelief at all to go along. She warps space and time around her, you can’t help but follow her every move.
We're just so lucky to have such great theater in Our Town.
Oh wait, sorry, wrong play.
Made by the Maker,
Twin Crix
