What Have You Done For Philately?
Back to The Gamm for another RI Premiere. This time, we're not going in swimming upstream from expectations (see 'Miss Saigon') for a show that, if nothing else, ran forever and built a huge fan base. Theresa Rebeck's 'Mauritius' left Broadway after about a month. Aside from a workshop in Boston and a short tour of duty in Chicago last year, 'Mauritius' is fairly unknown. It has a respectable Tony to its name and sported F. Murry Abraham in New York . Beyond that? Well...it's about stamps. Or stamp collectors. Or greed and the human condition. Or simply hanging on and learning when to let go. Or all of these things.
The one thing known about 'Mauritius' is that it's supposed to be a killer ensemble piece, an actor's dream. Has Director Rachel Walshe managed to get the right ingredients for this newly-fabled five-way? We'll see as More Teeth returns to The Gamm and learns to tell the difference between our penny red brown and two pence blue.
October 25, 2010
We are reminded often, over the course of 'Mauritius', that, in stamp collecting (we're going
to shy away from all forms of the word Philately after exorcising that particular demon in
the bad pun above -Theresa Rebeck's characters use it as the base for multiple forms of
speech, giving it an almost sexual connotation, not unlike the ubiquitous "fuck" which rides
in tandem), it's the errors and flaws that make them valuable and interesting. Just like
people. Steve Kidd's wonderfully multifaceted Dennis is a former stamp collector who now
collects personalities around him, skillfully extracting their provenance and bringing out
the hidden values. He's a con man, sure, but one with a Bogart-like heart who's just trying
to get a break in this rough, rough world. He's marvelously geeky underneath his tough guy
exterior and Kidd is able to play both sides of that coin with nimble dexterity.
'Mauritius' has been called "Mamet for girls" and, in many ways, that's an easy label to
accept, even if it comes across as pandering. Coarse language rises to the poetic,
characters get plenty of chances to riff (Richard Donelly's Sterling perhaps coming closest
to the form in his note-perfect, serpentine take on the nature of Collectibles and Commerce
in the Second Act - worth the price of admission alone) and there is always something
unhinged beneath the surface, waiting to spring loose. But, without going further and
comparing 'Mauritius' to 'American Buffalo' (which has also been done), it's more apt to
just say that, not unlike Gamm's previous production, Mamet's 'Glengarry Glenn Ross', we
have a small, intertwined group of people who are all longing for "the make" - the quick
buy-low/sell-high that will lead to an elusive better life. Although, in deliciously
twisted fashion, Rebeck's protagonist, Jackie's (delivered fiercely by Amanda Ruggiero) idea
of a "better life" is Kafka-goes-to-Ibiza. Jackie is battling demons that are elliptically
referred to. She has suffered with a presumably single mother who may or may not have...what?
Beat her? Probably. Suffered from psychosis or addiction? Most likely. By the time Jackie's
upscale, yet prodigal sister Mary comes home, it's to mop up. Mary had escaped, after all,
leaving Jackie alone to deal with Mom and the mounting debt. Casey Seymour Kim returns to
the Gamm stage in a wonderfully understated performance with all the right shades of
tortured frustration peeking through the veneer.
Many of Rebeck's backstories are never fully fleshed out, but for all of the complaints
levied against the script, most of which reek of a desire to be spoon-fed details like a
hearty meal of "Law and Order" (I dont mind a twist, but tie up all the loose ends by
10:54!), it's those gray areas that keep these characters interesting. And, like Dennis, we
feel they're interesting when they're scheming, cajoling, and exhibiting poor behavior.
The only person here who is at least honest in his dirtbaggery is Sterling. Once again, we're
never quite sure of what Sterling is all about. He's the type who is wealthy enough to come
up with at least a million in cash on short notice, but whether he got it via arms dealing,
real estate or plain crime, we're never sure. In the world of the play, it's safer not to
know too much about Sterling and it's better for us as well. To get specifics would make him
two dimensional. His rocky relationship with the expert in the matter, Phil (played so
convincingly by Jim O'Brien, that you keep wondering where you know this guy from), is based
on a barely defined past conflict. It seems evident that he had an affair with his wife (or
even perhaps his daughter, which would be slimy enough to suit this atmosphere), but we and
the other characters are never told for sure. And, what's even more interesting is that
Sterling is interested more in perfection than flaws. His lust for the fabled Mauritius "Post
Office" stamps is only increased by their apparent perfect condition, not the historical
mistake that was supposed to have created them in the first place. Apropos to the murky
details of the characters' lives, the actual story of the Mauritian "Post Office" stamp
error is clouded in debate. And, we are treated to a wonderful, manic anorak's proclamation
by Kidd's Dennis that no one is ever in agreement in the world of stamp collecting as to the
true stories behind these slips of paper. For every lost detail in Rebeck's plotline is a
dollop of.alth that they represent. All the wealthy collectors hide them away in a
vault, content to know they are in possession. The stamps rep0painfully accurate minutia. None of Rebeck's holes are products of lazy writing.
That's real life. Everyone has holes that need to be filled. Geeks of all kinds -
collectors, music buffs, sports fanatics - they all seem to have holes in their lives that are
filled by the quest for the collectable and/or the bragging rights of having the
completist's store of knowledge. For some, like Sterling, money is not an end but a means to
attaining the unattainable. Dennis loves stamps for their history and beauty, but is not so
attached that he wont turn a quick buck at their expense. In fact, it seems no one wants to
merely own these stamps, privately, for their own sake except Sterling who has no need for
the immense wealth that they represent. All the wealthy collectors hide them away in a
vault, content to know they are in possession. The stamps rephin. None of these people are who they seem to be, save Sterling, but even his honesty is
deceptive.
Sterling's love of Perfection over Flawed Beauty begs the question of whether or not Rebeck
is telling us that perfection is not as sublime as the struggle to get there. Or is that the
one aspect of Sterling that keeps him human? Certainly, we find that Phil and even Mary's
appreciation for the Mauritius "Post Office" is supposedly larger than their own personal
desires, but they are not the ultimate focus. It's Jackie, who would just as soon set fire
to the stamps than let them go unsold. She has been captive all her life and these stamps
represent her way out of the cocoon. Her butterfly will be a mutant, a monster, but she will
fly. The prospect of this treasure being kept captive, whether under glass or in a vault,
means that she too would stay captive. It is this struggle that brings Jackie and Dennis to
a fragile, ever changing agreement to work together on making a deal and they emerge,
battered and broken, as the heroes of this piece.
So, should we yearn for flaws when faced with perfection in order to be human? Not
necessarily. This production comes damn close to perfection and Director Rachel Walshe has
assembled a team around her that is firing on all cylinders. Katryne Hecht's set is a dusty
playground of pawn shops and parlors with every detail down to the missed and mismatched
letters on the bulletin board skewed perfectly. Jen Rock's lighting is subtle and we are
thankfully spared any specials on the stamps or narrative lighting that many designers may
have overemployed. The only instance was a particularly effective moment of a backlit
Jackie, brooding eerily in a darkened room while Mary, the good sister, stands in the lit
doorway. Marilyn Salvatore's costumes are similarly simple with perfect flaws; Dennis'
high-water jeans evoking nebbish thug is one highlight.
Walshe's hand is clear in the staging as, at any given point, we know who wants what and who
is standing in the way. If the characters' lives are murky, their intentions are not. The
only moment of indecision all around is inherent in the script - and here is where the Mamet
comparisons come in more clearly - the curse of the Opening Monologue. There is no harder
challenge to hand an actor than to have to open a show with a multi-page monologue,
especially when it's directed at everyone and no one. Ruggiero is up to the task, but (as
was the case with Sam Babbitt in the opening scene of 'Glengarry...') what we see a lot of the
time is an actor acting, not a character arriving out of nowhere from another moment. To
make it harder, the script has Phil, and what is later revealed to be Dennis behind a
newspaper, having no reaction to her babbling (save a quick jerk to a stab at the stamp
geeks). Is Jackie that unhinged that she would keep talking, uninterrupted, to total
strangers for such a length of time? Could be.
And then there's the stamp album, taking on a character as solid as the Maltese Falcon. The
book is pushed, pulled, prodded and wielded as both sword and shield. The conceit throughout
is that there are "rules," an honor code among thieves, that no one will simply forcibly
remove the album from someone else's possession. Jackie does, in fact, rip the book out of
people's hands a number of times, so we know it can be done. And yet, alone in a store with
two strange men, one of whom is ruthless enough to actually slap and choke her in front of
witnesses, someone does not just take the $6 million book and kick her out into the street or worse...it's hard to fathom. When in her hands, she gesticulates with it as an extension of herself, dangling it
tantalizingly in the faces of her competitors - yet no one simply takes it away for good. Of
course, if that happened, there would be no tension, no conflict and no play. If we're to
close our eyes to anything in the script's construct, it is this. Could Walshe have
mitigated this weakness in the plot by curbing those moments and allowing the treasure more
apparent protection? Perhaps. But it would not have been as fun, as suspenseful and as
hilarious as the final product certainly is.
The Gamm has succeeded again in producing one of the best plays running in Rhode Island right
now. The added bonus of 'Mauritius' is its very unfamiliarity. See it for the first time and
enjoy it as it unravels without the foreshadowing laughs of a Theresa Rebeck cult sitting
behind you. Although, by the end of this run, there may very well be one.
'Mauritius' runs October 21 - November 21 at the Sandra Feinstein-Gamm Theatre.172 Exchange St., Pawtucket, RI, 02860. Tickets range between $18 - $40 depending on the date and your age. To purchase, call 401-723-4266 or visit the Gamm website . Tip: Do not enter the thae
