AmericanTheaterWeb Original News & Reviews

A chorus of overzealous birds, crickets and frogs greets audiences as they enter the Women's Project for Anne Bogart's staging of Virginia Woolf's Freshwater. This cacophony (just one aspect of designer Darron L. West's effective soundscape for the production) is an apt prelude to what follows, a raucous, absurd dash through the world of some Victorian literary and artistic giants.

Woolf wrote Freshwater as a lark, something that could be performed by her family and friends. There are two versions of the play. One was written in 1923 and she later revised the piece in 1935. Here, audiences will find an amalgam of the two and the piece centers on photographer Julia Margaret Cameron (an ebullient and antic Ellen Lauren) and her husband, philosopher Charles Henry Hay Cameron (imbued with naughty eccentricities by Tom Nellis). They're hoping to embark on a journey to India, but before they leave, a pair of coffins needs to be delivered to their home, where painter George Frederick Watts (given a sort of discombobulated flair by Barney O'Hanlon) and his very young bride, Ellen Terry (a captivating Kelly Maurer) are seemingly in residence. Also staying at the house is Alfred Lord Tennyson (played with preening lunacy by Stephen Duff Webber).

To describe what happens in Freshwater is a little like trying to hold onto a wave. Ultimately, the essential arc of the play focuses on Ellen's infatuation with Lt. John Craig (a wonderfully elegant and deliciously forthright Gian Murray Gianino), who has made advances to her after he and his horse leapt over her while she was picking flowers. Otherwise, the house (which scenic designer James Schuette renders as a large windowed room where the walls are painted with bright strokes of green, making it look like the inhabitants are playing inside a child's conception of a great lawn) and the play are exemplars of controlled pandemonium. Watts attempt to paint Ellen as the Greek incarnation of "Modesty." Julia, after seeing Ellen on Tennyson's lap, decides that the young woman needs to be photographed as his muse. The esteemed poet, who has yet to be made a Lord, recites from his work, and, Charles, when not doddering around the peripheries, extols the moonlight he hopes to see in India.

If one thinks about the sort of familial chaos that runs through Kaufman and Hart's You Can't Take It With You, and then imagines that play being written by French absurdist Eugene Ionesco, the sense and feel of Freshwater can almost be realized. Of course, Woolf is also having a grand time skewering some of her neighbors, a relative and her artistic forebears in the process.

Bogart's production, a collaboration between Women's Project and her own SITI Company, brings this minor work by the literary giant surprisingly, and satisfyingly, to life for contemporary audiences. As the actors bound through the piece, scampering up and down ladders and in and out of the large French windows at the back of the stage, it's not always necessary to know the specifics about the targets of Woolf's satire. One simply knows that an artist from a younger generation is having a great deal of fun at the expense of an older one. Fussiness is being eschewed and the younger characters – i.e. Ellen and Lt. Craig – know that something new must be created, even if they're not sure what, and just in case theatergoers don't know that they've just watched an artist have some fun with his or her predecessors, the soundscape comes into play at the end of the production with a blare of rock music. Bogart and her fine company have enjoyed layering their own playfulness onto Woolf's and nothing here should be taken that seriously, simply enjoyed.

---- Andy Propst

Freshwater plays at Women's Project (424 West 55th Street). Performances are Tuesday and Wednesday at 7pm; Thursday through Saturday at 8pm and Sunday at 3 and 7pm. Tickets are $42.00 and can be purchased by calling 212-239-6200 or by visiting www.Telecharge.com. Further information is also available online at www.WomensProject.org

Printer-friendly version