What Is the Cause of Thunder at Williamstown Theatre Festival
Betty Gilpin and Wendie Malick Star in Ersatz Soap
By: Charles Giuliano - Jul 24, 2009
What Is the Cause of Thunder?
By Noah Haidle
Directed by Justin Waldman; Scenic Design, Alexander Dodge; Lighting Design, Jeff Croiter; Costume Design, Nicole V. Moody; Original Music, Fritz Patton; Production Stage Manager, David Sugarman; Production Manager, Joel M. Krause; Casting Melcap Casting. Starring: Wendie Malick (Ada) and Betty Gilpin (Ophelia).
Williamstown Theatre Festival
Nikos Stage
July 22 through August 2, 2009. World Premiere
Shakespeare's King Lear, a dottering old fool who makes a mess by dividing his kingdom between three daughters, asks "First let me talk to this philosopher-what is the cause of thunder?" There is a critical argument whether Lear is a failed work, and arguably the first "soap opera," or whether Lear is one of the greatest of the Bard's characters? It represents a challenge and triumph for actors in their later years. The argument spins on whether we feel sympathy or empathy for Lear's self inflicted fate. Does it inspire pathos or bathos? Revealingly, it is the king's fool who, when they are abandoned to thunder in the wilderness, utters words of ironic wisdom.
By soap opera we mean a drama taken over the top to absurd limits milking every ounce of emotion from a ridiculous situation. This evokes either a tear jerker or, if taken beyond credibility, campy humor. The satires of Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal" and "Gulliver's Travels" or Voltaire's "Candide," the plays of Moliere, may be ancestors of the modern genre of the soap opera. By which we mean those endless afternoon dramas with a cast of working actors glad to get a regular paycheck. The plots stretch out for years.
In their original incarnations on the radio, and later as they evolved on TV, the primary products pitched to house wives were soap and other domestic items. Initially, they were intended for an afternoon audience of mostly women but it became hip and trendy for college kids cutting classes to watch their favorites soaps.
It is this cool subculture of looking at soaps as camp entertainment that apparently inspired Noah Haidle to riff on that line from Shakespeare fleshed out to the requisite over the top limits in "What Is the Cause of Thunder?" The play is a spoof of soaps as well as an ersatz melodrama. It had its world premiere, last night, directed by Justin Waldman, at the Williamstown Theatre Festival.
The opening scene was hilarious. It evoked an ongoing soap in which Ada (Wendie Malick), the matriarch who has held a TV family together for the past 27 years, is praying in the chapel of a parochial hospital. She implores God for the miracle which will awaken her daughter (a twin) from a six year long coma. While pouring her heart out to the Savior she is joined by a Nun (Betty Gilpin) who, with a forced and unrecognizable accent, ersatz Irish/ British, informs her of a string of outrageous tragedies. Each new incident, including a fire in the nursery, and animals escaping from the zoo, gets a huge laugh from the audience. But the ultimate response comes when the Nun informs Ada that "God died." This is followed by just how she knows this to be a fact. That so and so told so and so who heard it from somebody who was there and saw it happen. More laughs.
God is Dead, is a crib from Wilhelm Nietzsche's "Also Sprach Zarathustra. Ein Buch für Alle und Keinen" (1883 - 1885). If that is the case then Ada's prayers fall on deaf ears. And the Nun also concludes that there is no need for her vow of chastity. She rips off her habit to reveal a slinky, glittery, black cocktail dress and charges off, we assume, for a bit of sin.
The stage is set for an evening of great fun. There would be a constant shift between vignettes from the ongoing soap opera and scenes set in the apartment which Ada shares with her pregnant daughter, Ophelia. This is intended to set up a contrast between the bathos of the scenes from the ongoing soap opera that Ada stars in,and the pathos of her real life. There is a delusional relationship with her daughter who is about to become a single mother. Ada, after some 27 years in the soap with a daily script to master, has lost the edge between illusion and delusion. She often can't distinguish between her real daughter, who drinks and chain smokes, and her TV twins, including the one in a coma, and the evil twin who wants to kill her.
The plot in the script for the next day, which Ada rehearses with Ophelia, calls for the Evil Twin to kill her comatose sister. She will then leap to her death from the hospital window on the 27th floor. But Ophelia argues that she won't die. Nobody ever dies on a soap. Ophelia recounts how her mother survived some six, death threatening incidents including a bullet to the face. The Evil Twin will fall onto the top of a truck full of hay that just happens to be parked under the window. Ada argues that it is unlikely that a hay truck will be parked next to a city hospital. In the scene that follows, it is actually a truck full of pillows. Oh well. The Evil Twin survives to cause more soapy mayhem.
Ada is a diva. She enters the apartment and just drops her clothes and huge bag on the floor. Which Ophelia. like her servant, picks up and puts away. There is overstated drama in Ada's every gesture. At one point she states that, after all, she holds a Daytime Emmy. To which Ophelia quips it's as tough to get as a venereal disease.
The plot tumbles along at a dizzy pace but once we know the trope the laughs are harder to come by. Pity, as these two brilliant actresses truly work their asses off. Particularly Gilpin who has lots of quick costume changes as she plays both twins, the Nun, Ophelia's unborn child as an angel, a stage hand, a lost son buried alive in the soap, as well as Ophelia. Each scene comes with a quick change while Malick is Ada, and her soapy doppelganger throughout the performance.
Yet again, for WTF, there are wonderful production values including the usual meticulous sets designed by the inventive Alexander Dodge. The Heaven scene with a cloud of smoke is simple and clever as is the wilderness scene from the soap. The costumes by Nichole V. Moody are apt. Justin Waldman has directed the action at a nice clip. Again, bravo to Gilpin and Malick who interact superbly.
The sticky point is the play itself. That wonderful and witty opening scene, so filled with promise, just isn't sustained. Should the evening unfold as an outrageous parody? Perhaps. But it also wants to be a drama about the complex emotional struggles between the fading soap star, about to be written out of the TV show because of sagging ratings, and the real life drama of her unwed daughter. Haidle has given Gilpin so many roles to play that we never come to understand and believe in the oppressed Ophelia. Particularly, when she tumbles into her own tragic delusions which mirror those of her mother.
In an interview with the Dramaturg, Clare Drobot, Haidle states that "I mean if I wanted to run for senate, I'd run for senate. But an artist has a very specific role in a community, in a society, and I don't think that role is to proselytizeÂ… I don't think my job is to tell anyone about anything."
Ok, fine, we understand that. The artist is not obligated to explain the work and art debases itself when it devolves into a polemic. We come to the theatre to be entertained. Surely it can be an escape, a circus, and relief from reality. But compelling theatre is also about something. This play did not yet deliver the kind of insights into its subject that one might hope for. It provided amusing examples of soap opera but did not convey an understanding of the phenomenon. It is never established why we should really care about these characters. The play hovers somewhere between satire and drama. The audience became unhinged more than the characters. We needed a bit more than ars gratia artis.