There's something appealing about going to a theater and watching two plays instead of one. Why settle for just one story when you can get two entirely different, and entirely captivating, experiences? And when those plays are co-directed by Greg Cesear and Tricia Bestic, you're assured of a special evening.
In Ludlow Fair & The Madness of Lady Bright by Pulitzer Prize winning Lanford Wilson—now at Cesear's Forum at Playhouse Square—we are treated to two full stories set in the 1960s, each about an hour long, and each possessing highly individual storytelling dynamics.
The first piece, Ludlow Fair, we find two young women preparing for bed. While Agnes is busy hogging the bathroom, Rachel seems fidgety and discontented, fussing with her hair and then spontaneously creating a Rorschach image using nail polish in the pages of a dictionary. She is a budding drama queen and it's clear she considers herself something of a romantic.
Once Agnes appears, we learn that Rachel recently ratted on her boyfriend after he stole money from her. In her free-floating remorse, she has decided she is now in love with him, all of which exhausts the shy and quiet Agnes. But as the story unfolds and Rachel falls asleep, Agnes' muses about her upcoming date with a man from work and we see that her calm waters may run quite deep.
It's a gentle and lightly amusing play, performed with admirable control and compassion by Graceyn Cecilia Dowd as Rachel and Katie Wells as Agnes.
After intermission The Madness of Lady Bright begins and gentility is set aside as we are introduced to the over-the-top aging drag queen Leslie Bright. Alone in his New York City flat and wearing a flowing satin robe of many colors, he is calling people he knows but no one is home.
Actually, he's not entirely alone. A Boy and a Girl are there with him, in his mind, and they alternately comfort and torment him with remembrances of past criticisms and some of his gay sexual adventures.
This is a tour-de-force performance by Matthew Wright, the accomplished local actor and director, who explores every nook, cranny and dusty corner of Leslie's faded glory. As written by Wilson, Lady Bright does not have a story arc, it has a serrated edge that Wright energetically navigates as his mind slowly slips into madness.
The Boy (Daniel Telford) and the Girl (Dowd, doubling) provide a poignant yet unforgiving sounding board as Wright's Leslie flips through the pages of his life. But this is no placid recitation by a fading oldster. Wright skillfully handles countless beats and turns of thought as he battles loneliness and his desire to be relevant to someone in the world again.
Along the way, playwright Wilson drops in amusing lines as Leslie muses "The old fey mare ain't what she used to be." He expresses his longing to play the role of Giselle in the eponymous romantic ballet. And then he breaks into dance (which is nothing like a ballet) as the Boy and Girl talk to each other, ignoring him. At times, he calls American Airlines just to connect to a live person for a few seconds.
It impossible to describe everything that Wright accomplishes in Wilson's short but brilliant piece of theater, which is considered a milestone piece, one of the first American plays to focus on a gay theme.
Suffice to say that if you aren't gob-smacked an hour later when curtain falls, you may need to check yourself for a pulse. It is an invigorating, disturbing, hilarious and resonant portrait of a wounded soul.
Cesear's Forum only presents one show each year. But those shows are invariably superb thanks to the unique sensibility of founder and artistic director Greg Cesear. This season's treat is Ludlow Fair & The Madness of Lady Bright, and it's ready to knock your socks (and shoes) off.
Ludlow Fair & The Madness of Lady Bright
Through October 26 at Cesear's Forum, Kennedy's Down Under in Playhouse Square, 1501 Euclid Ave., cesearsforum.com, 216-241-6000.
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