Review: ‘Collected Stories’ thoughtful, well-acted
The challenge in staging a two-person play is making sure the two performers have the chemistry and acting chops to hold the audience’s attention.
Luckily for us, the Modern Theater Spokane has found two actors who bring all those skills to the stage in “Collected Stories.”
“Collected Stories,” by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Donald Margulies (“Dinner With Friends”), stars Diana Trotter as Ruth Steiner, an aging writer who spends more time teaching writing at a New York City college than she spends actually writing.
She holds a tutorial session at her apartment for one of her students whose work caught her attention. But when Lisa Morrison (Aubrey Shimek Davis) shows up at the appointed time, Ruth can’t believe this bubbly young woman before her is the same person who crafted the serious story she holds in her hands.
“So am I not a serious person?” Lisa asks her esteemed professor.
“No, you are not,” is Ruth’s curt reply.
Lisa, meanwhile, can’t believe she’s meeting THE Ruth Steiner, whose early-career short stories helped inspire her own writerly aspirations. Still, the two women hit it off, and Lisa begins work as Ruth’s assistant. Things aren’t completely smooth – Ruth chafes at Lisa’s attempts to organize her desk, for instance – but quickly the mentor-student relationship evolves into a friendship.
They talk about writing, of course, and of Ruth’s past relationship with a famous poet. They discuss events current to the play’s mid-1990s setting – Woody Allen’s relationship with Soon-Yi Previn, for example – and the role of stories and how to tell them. And as Lisa’s star begins to rise, we see Ruth struggle to accept that her own career is on the wane.
As Ruth, Trotter commands the stage with authority. Trotter heads the theater department at Whitworth University and brings a wealth of experiences in academia to the role. Ruth is acerbic and dismissive at times. But it’s obvious from the day she and Lisa meet that she’s eager for the companionship, despite her protests that she prefers solitude.
Davis, as the young Lisa, continues to shine for the Modern, following memorable turns in “The Glass Menagerie” and “The Last Five Years.” Her Lisa is vivacious and eager to learn, all bright-eyed and quick. She’s also adept at using her body language and facial expressions to convey the real meaning behind her words. When she and Ruth are at odds in the play’s final scenes, Davis helps us feel Lisa’s confusion and shame. It’s another winning performance.
Director Nich Witham keeps “Collected Stories” moving along at a brisk pace. Witham, himself a veteran actor, guides his leading women into memorable and moving performances.
As my companion on Friday night said, “There is nothing here that I don’t like.” I quite agree. “Collected Stories” is many things – a meditation on fame, a relationship study, a discourse on the nature of art. It also makes for a great night at the theater.