What I Did Last Summer: Theater review by David Cote
Anna Trumbull (Kristine Nielsen), a.k.a. the Pig Woman, is a bohemian ex–blue blood (and half Native American) who likes to unlock “potential” in young people. She does so with whimsical bluster and straight talk, and also by experimenting in various mediums (painting, sculpture, poetry) without fear of failure. Something of the same approach informs director Jim Simpson’s rather lovely and complexly articulated revival of A.R. Gurney’s What I Did Last Summer. Although I’m new to this period dramedy about restless Charlie (Noah Galvin) and his free-spirited mentor one summer on Lake Erie in 1945, I suspect that Simpson has, like Anna, released something waiting to be born.
Reviews of the play 32 years ago at Circle Rep were mixed, admiring Gurney’s wit in tweaking the hypocrisies of midcentury WASP society, while also judging the characters too thin and the plot sketchy. Simpson turns Gurney’s jokey audience asides and the watercolor-like haziness of his structure into an advantage: An onstage percussionist (Dan Weiner) accompanies the action, underscoring scenes or accenting lines—a rim shot here, snare drum there. The effect is part Birdman soundtrack, part Kabuki woodblock, and it gives the bright, presentational staging a neatly abstracted sense of ritual. Michael Yeargan’s wide-open, minimalist set, incorporating video projections of stage directions and dialogue as typographical art, adds to the metatheatrical/intertextual vibe.
Beyond these attractive and intelligent design choices, the production is grounded in excellent acting. Galvin finds a unique confluence of cocky and gawky as 14-year-old Charlie, a child of privilege who, with his father fighting in the Pacific and his mother carrying on an affair, turns to Anna as a surrogate mother. Nielsen is in fine form, softening her usual bobbleheaded zaniness with notes of melancholy. Carolyn McCormick’s frustrated mom is a delicate layering of pretense and pain. And as two of Charlie’s peers, Juliet Brett and Pico Alexander add wistful comedy to the proceedings. All in all, it’s a pleasant discovery, the sort of show that almost feels like a vacation.—David Cote
Pershing Square Signature Center (Off Broadway). By A.R. Gurney. Directed by Jim Simpson. With Kristine Nielsen, Noah Galvin, Carolyn McCormick. Running time: 2hrs. One intermission. Through June 7.
Follow David Cote on Twitter: @davidcote