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
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