Reviewer: Doug
Location: Connecticut
Date: July 24, 2005 17:26 GMT

I went to Vassar Friday night and saw the reading of "Rapture", the new play by Joanna Murray Smith in the Susan Stein Shiva Theater, one of three theaters in the Powerhouse Theater complex on the Vassar campus. The Powerhouse Theater, by the way, is literally that - an ancient, hollowed-out brick edifice with a tall smokestack rising from one end of the building, once used for generating electricity for the Vassar campus.

The Powerhouse theater only has about 100 seats, and the Susan Stein Shiva Theater isn't much bigger - a cozy place for a reading.

The setting of the play was a row of six black music stands with six chairs running across the black wall behind them. The producer had thoughtfully provided a bottle of spring water for each actor, which sat on the floor beside each of their chairs. This pleasantly informal touch matched the tone of the evening - summer theater on a warm summer evening and an audience in summer clothes.

The cast was also in their summer clothes. Dana, David Aaron Baker, Talia Balsam, Mary McCann, Geoffrey Nauffts, and John Slattery all looked like they had just walked out of their hotels or apartments in New York dressed in the clothes they had worn to do their shopping in the afternoon, gotten into the limousine or van that took them up to Vassar, then disembarked and walked into the theater and started performing. Dana, for instance, was wearing a simple silk summer dress with a Pucci-style print, sandals, and a grey cardigan. She was also carrying a bottle of water, which she parked in various locations during the performance. First she put it on the floor by her chair, then she put it on the music stand while she was performing, then she just held it in her hand and took an occasional swig while she was reading her lines, and then she put it on the floor by her feet. That's how casual she was, and the whole cast was.

But they were all very professional and very good. They had obviously spent a lot of time studying the script and rehearsing - it showed in their timing. "Rapture" is about the discovery that a couple in their forties made while they were living at a Marriott Hotel for seven months after their house burned down, and how two other couples, their longtime friends, try to come to terms with it. Dana played the female half of one of the other two couples. It is remarkable how much acting can be done when there is no scenery, no props, no costumes, and the actors cannot move around the stage. The six players performed like a small chamber orchestra, vocalizing their parts and acting as if they were in costume. Dana was particularly effective. Her vocal intonations, facial expressions, and body language were evocative, meaningful, and occasionally moving, and she had one "aria" that stopped the show.

When she wasn't acting Dana was as beautiful and charming as ever. Her red hair was parted in the middle and longer than usual, adding an extra touch of informality to her looks . She seemed relaxed and seemed to be enjoying both the evening and the experience. Summer theater seems to agree with her.