Subtle Insight Strong Actors And A Witty, Intriguing Script Place ‘Sight Unseen’ In The ‘Good Theater’ Category

“Sight Unseen,” Through Jan. 28, at Interplayers Ensemble, call 455-PLAY

If I had to describe what good theater should be, I’d say it should be thought-provoking, funny, intelligent, literate and emotionally involving, all at the same time.

What a coincidence. I might as well be describing “Sight Unseen,” the Donald Margulies off-Broadway hit that opened at Interplayers last weekend. This script has everything an intelligent script ought to have, and the Interplayers’ version has the added bonus of a brilliant lead performance by Samuel Toffler as artist Jonathan Waxman.

First, this is a witty play, which is not the same thing as a laff-riot. It’s something better. The humor in this play is subtle, often seemingly offhand. For instance, at one point Patricia asks the artist whether the hands in one of his paintings are intended to be fists.

Her husband Nick, who despises the artist, breaks in and says, “No, they’re just poorly drawn hands.”

This line gets a laugh, since it’s a jibe at the expense of the artist. But the line actually sums up one of the intellectual questions at the heart of the show. Does an artist have a responsibility to clearly convey his intentions? Or can he simply let the viewer guess?

In this case, it is a crucial point, since the hands belong to a woman who is either being raped or being made love to. Which is it? Are her hands clenched into fists, or not?

Nick’s jibe actually touches upon one of the other central points of the play: Is a man an artist just because he (and his publicity firm) says he is? Or is an artist someone who can draw hands well enough to be distinguished from fists?

This point is debated fiercely, and entertainingly, in a staged interview between the artist and a young German art writer (played well by Mieke ter Poorten) in a sexy black dress. These interviews, as directed by Joan Welch, are full of intriguing subcurrents. Jonathan makes a big show of being the bored star, impatient at being pulled away from his adoring public. At first, the writer appears to be a fawning fan, but soon her questions begin to take on a hostile undertone. Jonathan blows up, and accuses her of being antiSemitic. But maybe he’s actually upset about her implication that he is an over-hyped phony.

Which is it? Like Jonathan with the fists, Margulies allows the audience to decide. But it’s not because Margulies can’t “draw” a scene well enough. It’s because he can draw it so well that we can see both possibilities.

Toffler, as Jonathan, is an unqualified success in a hugely demanding role. He’s in almost every scene, and he has to instantly shift moods and ages (from 21 to almost 40). Toffler carries the role the way a fine outfielder plays baseball - he makes the difficult look easy. He has a way of conveying undercurrents and submerged tensions without dialogue. The character is from Brooklyn, and we never doubt for a second that this is where Jonathan is from - even though Toffler is actually from across the bridge in the Bronx.

Mary Anne Seibert is also fine as Patricia, his former girlfriend. She’s sweet and earthy on the surface, but full of submerged anger and resentment underneath. Her scenes with Toffler crackle with tension and hidden meaning.

The character of her husband Nick, as played by Cheyenne Wilbur, is a lot harder to figure out. At first, I thought he was a buffoon: He comes across like some dotty English gardener named Reg in an Agatha Christie mystery. However, Wilbur soon makes it clear Nick is a lot sharper, and lot more cunning, than we at first suspect. It is he, along with the German interviewer, who strips away Jonathan’s veneer.

The script plays some interesting tricks with time. Each act begins in the present, and ends 15 or 17 years earlier. However, this is not particularly illuminating. Instead, it is only confusing and even jarring, because this time sequence is not consistent. This is the only element of Margulies’ play that doesn’t quite work as intended.

In an uncharacteristically amateurish touch for Interplayers, the program actually lists the playwright’s name wrong. It calls him David Margulies, instead of Donald.

This is ironic, because in the larger scheme Interplayers has done the Spokane audience a tremendous service by bringing this relatively new playwriting voice to town.

We’d be happy to hear plenty more from Margulies. That would be Donald, not David.

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with story: HIGHLIGHT: The crackling, tension-filled scenes between Jonathan and Patricia