Theater Review -- Tom Titus

“‘The Dazzle’ is based on the lives of the Collyer brothers,”

playwright Richard Greenberg declares, “about whom I know almost

nothing.”

Nevertheless, South Coast Repertory’s most frequently produced modern

dramatist has concocted a compelling, if highly fictionalized, account of

these wildly eccentric siblings whose New York apartment came more and

more to resemble the final scene of “Citizen Kane” -- junk piled upon

junk, an appropriate analogy for the brothers’ trashed lives.

Langley and Homer Collyer prevailed in the first half of the 20th

century, the former a brilliant pianist with razor-sharp pitch but an

obsessive-compulsive psyche much like Dustin Hoffman’s character in “Rain

Man,” and the latter his highly intelligent but largely antisocial

keeper. Greenberg has taken the nuts and bolts of what is known of their

lives, mixed in a woman who pursues Langley for reasons not immediately

apparent, and fashioned an electrifying dramatic scenario.

Directed by Mark Rucker as the finale on SCR’s Second Stage (the

spotlight will shift to the new Julianne Argyros Theater in the fall),

“The Dazzle” is, in a word, dazzling. Three superlative performances

against a backdrop (by Darcy Scanlin) of gradually accumulated clutter

draw the playgoer, willingly or not, into the brothers’ strange private

world.

As the play opens, in the early years of the past century, Homer and

Langley appear in formal attire, joined by a young lady enamored of the

eccentric pianist. Her pursuit, although discouraged by the other

brother, occupies the bulk of the first act, culminating in an emotional

crisis as the “Wedding March” plays offstage. From this point, and on

through the late 1940s, the brothers descend into an abyss of trash and

madness.

JD Cullum excels as the brilliantly artistic but mentally twisted

Langley, pressing his infantile ramblings through the interferences of

reason and romance. Cullum’s fixations on minutiae are superbly conveyed,

even to the rather outrageous point of fondling his lady friend’s gown

when she has visibly offered him so much more.

As the more rational Homer, whose filial duties, necessitating

abandonment of a normal life, have left him harsh and embittered, Matt

Roth delivers an equally powerful account. While Cullum is given the

showier role, Roth counterbalances his brother’s growing madness with

pungent diatribes, which quite naturally become so much verbal

scattershot.

Susannah Schulman brings a touch of elegance to the brothers’ drab

lives in the first act before returning as a tragically transformed

character in the second. Her early vivacity is well contrasted with the

haggard street person we view in the later scenes.

Greenberg has taken a true story and embellished it splendidly,

retaining the real names of the Collyer brothers for his characters and

imagining what their bizarre life must have been like. Realizing that the

brothers alone would form a pretty tedious story, he has added Schulman’s

character as seasoning, though failing to adequately explain her fervent

attraction to the loopy Langley.

Scanlin’s apartment setting seems almost normal at first, save for

piles of papers tucked in various corners, but it’s transformed in the

second act to an indoor junkyard, dripping trash from the ceiling. Geoff

Korf’s splendid lighting design and an original background score by Karl

Fredrik Lundeberg further enrich the compelling production.

“The Dazzle” probes deeply into the causes and effects of social

eccentricity, bolstered by a trio of highly engaging performances. It’s a

fitting farewell for South Coast Repertory’s Second Stage.

* TOM TITUS reviews local theater for the Daily Pilot. His reviews

appear Thursdays and Saturdays.

FYI

* What: “The Dazzle”

* Where: South Coast Repertory’s Second Stage, 655 Town Center Drive,

Costa Mesa

* When: 7:45 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays, 2 and 7:45 p.m. Saturdays

and Sundays until April 28

* Cost: $27-$51

* Call: (714) 708-5555