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Tuesday, November 03, 2009
Director Captures Intricacies of 'First Love'
By Barry Gaines
For the Journal
The FUSION Theatre Company production of "First Love" by Charles L. Mee challenges and delights its audiences. This three-person play, directed by Laurie Thomas, is an unconventional study of a conventional topic: the intensely joyous and searingly painful arc of falling in and out of love, especially for the first time. The acting is superb and the play provocative.
Charles L. Mee is a unique playwright. He has declared, "There is no such thing as an original play," and his works remind me of visual artists who construct their works from "found objects."
"First Love" is like a collage of scenes and emotions with rough edges and sudden shifts. After reading the play (available free online), I was confused and concerned. It took the fine direction and performances to unlock the play's humor and reveal its authority.
The story is ancient and familiar. Harold is an old man, apparently homeless and adrift from his family that meant much to him. Edith is an aging woman who has not given up her dream of finding a man with whom to share her life. They meet when Edith demands room on a park bench where Harold is sleeping. A "cute meet."
They verbally spar with each other and find that they have a common past as anti-establishment protestors whose youthful visions for a better world have not come to fruition. They recite stanzas from Allen Ginsberg's Beat poem, "Howl," and dance to the socialist anthem "L'Internationale." They make love, fight, split and come together again. Moving in and out of these scenes is a beautiful young woman playing various roles that take us beyond the simple narrative. Kate Costello portrays the young woman with a beatific smile that suggests she possesses some vital knowledge.
Mee places his play in "the world of Magritte," the Belgian surrealist painter who paints ordinary objects in unusual contexts. Scenic and lighting designer Richard K. Hogle captures this surrealism in the undulating back wall of the set featuring realistic pictures and comments about love scrawled as graffiti.
Paul Blott and Joanne Camp who play Harold and Edith are younger and more attractive than the characters Mee envisioned, but they are excellent. Blott, familiar to Cell audiences, captures Harold's insecurities, uncertainties, and yearnings, as well as his youthful memories as he eyes Costello dressed as a ballerina.
Camp is a welcome newcomer to Albuquerque with a wealth of experience acting both on and off Broadway. Her portrayal of Edith is honest and brave, touching and teaching. It is Edith who experiences "First Love," and Camp is not afraid to display raw emotions — passion, fear, anger, joy — in her Edith.
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