Laurents returns to George Street with an ode to absent friends

Come Back, Come Back Wherever You Are
George Street Playhouse
playing through Sunday, Nov. 1st

The most important character in Arthur Laurents' new play never shows up on stage. Paolo, a landscaper, beloved husband and son, (but not so much as a brother) has died months before the action begins in Come Back, Come Back Wherever You Are, a world premiere production at the George Street Playhouse.

 

We learn from Sara, his widow played by mourning Alison Fraser as she sings, that “Life Is Just a Bowl of Cherries.” The svelte blonde lights up the stage as a woman who is devastated by the death of her husband of 27 years, but who retains the glow of love as well as the spotlight.  The drama begins and ends with her singing performance accompanied by musical director and pianist Christopher Howatt and bass player Danny Stone, a nice addition to the evening's entertainment.  It also gives Fraser, a two-time Tony award nominee, a chance to seduce the audience as well as Dougal, played by Jim Bracchitta. Dougal (how seriously can you take a guy with that name?) has the impossible task of winning over a widow still in love with her landscaper husband -- who still advises her posthumously from his hot house.

 

And this is a play that literally revolves around the idea that love equals life. Some people are born loved while others are not, setting the patterns for a life time. Some like the brother and sister in this drama are born to the same set of parents. The old joke "My brother was an only child" is true for Michelle, played resignedly and mischievously by Leslie Lyles and her grieving parents Marion, played staunchly and richly by Shirley Knight, and her father Richard, played by John Carter as a man broken by his beloved son's death.  Richard is a man left with nothing to look forward to at the end of his life. He has no meaningful work or any relationship that will sustain him after his son's death, his marriage to Marion being largely loveless though still dutiful.

Playwright and director Laurent, 92 years old, feels much pain for this character and one can only imagine as he wrote and directed, he is glad he is not him.

Laurent pores out much feeling in Marian as well. Without love, humans like plants needing water, languish. The play literally revolves around everyone's relationship to Paolo. With large projections on a curved screen, the stage works like a carousel, transporting one scene, the actors included, off center stage while ushering in the new scene. There is no intermission to the 90-minute production, so the story moves seamlessly with a minimum of scenery and props.

The supporting cast works well together: Dougal at once the seductive suitor, the unloved and unloving; Michelle, who wants to be known as Mickey because in her family sons seemed to be loved more than daughters; and Richard, the brokenhearted father and unresponsive husband. Actors Alison Fraser and Shirley Knight connect and balance each other's performance.  It is their relationship that is at the heart of this drama, which affirms that love is not always free. The audience was feeling physically chilly as they arrived to George Street, but at the end of the evening, the play had warmed them up considerably, although most would have liked to have met Paolo.