CHRIS. […] Well, let me put it this way. Everybody has a sense of reality of some kind or other, some kind of sense of things being real or not real in his, his – particular – world…
MRS. GOFORTH. I know what you mean. Go on.
CHRIS. I’ve lost it lately, this sense of reality in my particular world. We don’t all live in the same world, you know, Mrs. Goforth. Oh, we all see the same things – sea, sun, sky, human faces and inhuman faces, but – they’re different in here! [touches his forehead] And one person’s sense of reality can be another person’s sense of – well, of madness! – chaos! – and, and –
MRS. GOFORTH. Go on. I’m still with you.
CHRIS. And when one person’s sense of reality, or loss of sense of reality, disturbs another one’s sense of reality – I know how mixed up this –
MRS. GOFORTH. Not a bit, clear as a bell, so keep on, y’haven’t lost my attention.
CHRIS. Being able to talk: wonderful! When one person’s sense of reality seems too – disturbingly different from another person’s, uh –
MRS. GOFORTH. Sense of reality. Continue.
CHRIS. Well, he’s – avoided! Not welcome! It’s — that simple … And – yesterday in Naples, I suddenly realized that I was in that situation. [He turns to the booming sea and says “Boom”.] I found out that I was now a – leper!
[from tennessee williams’ “the milk train doesn’t stop here anymore”]
i read “the milk train doesn’t stop here anymore” when i was quite young but i remember being struck by the idea of how reality is entirely relative. it is a terrifying concept in some ways – terrifying in how alone we are in perpetuity and how thin and arbitrary the line is between reason and insanity.
last week, i went to see “the illusion” at todd’s theater (university of rochester) and it triggered some of the same thoughts. tony kushner’s adaptation of corneille’s “l’illusion comique” is self-admittedly loose with terrific results. the play talks about love, jealousy, betrayal, revenge, and murder with 17th century grandiloquence but its wit, edge and compacted structure propel it gently into postmodernism.
on a dark night, pridamant comes to the sorcerer alcandre’s cave to find out whatever he can about his runaway son. in a series of illusions created by alcandre and his perennially abused servant, pridamant sees his son at different times in his life. however, names, relationships and allegiances keep shifting with each new illusion. pridamant’s reactions to his son’s adventures are equally intractable.
the idea of a play within a play, an illusion within an illusion, the artifice of theater mirrored by the deception of magic tricks, and the osmotic interplay between reality and madness, all add an evanescent, contradictory, elusive quality to the plot. this eeriness was further reinforced by nigel maister’s brilliant staging. the design team’s minimalist, creative interpretation should also be applauded, especially the use of a one-way mirror that turned transparent as if by magic. ominously lit from the inside, it was like watching apparitions stuck inside a life-size television.
the acting, by university of rochester students, was spot-on. however, john amir-fazli who played matamore, a pompous buffoon with unexpected sparks of kindness and profundity, was by far the most magnetic character in the play. alcandre’s long suffering servant was at once imbued with servility and sinister poise by anna kroup.
