Eccentric performances energize Eleemosynary

Author: Colin Foss

You would think eccentricity is a trait that you learn, not inherit, but "Eleemosynary" offers a new take on the odd habits of your relatives. Maybe eccentricity is a choice, a deliberate life decision, made in order to cope better with a family beleaguered by their own intelligence and a cumbersome amount of communication problems. Such is the case in Eleemosynary, Lee Blessing's celebrated 1987 play about three generations of women plagued with just these problems. A grandmother who can talk to stones, a mother who ran away from her family to become a celebrated chemistry researcher, and a one-time national spelling-bee champion all vie for each other's acceptance in this delightfully dysfunctional play recently in production at the Hepburn Zoo.

Academia looms heavy over each character, both as a means to gain respect within the family and as an outlet for their frustrated relationships with each other. In a skillful rendering of the role of Grandma Dorothea, Martha Newman '10 truly embodies genius gone awry in an energetic and playful performance. Dorothea raised her granddaughter Echo, teaching her ancient Greek and Latin while still in the cradle as an attempt to stave off the "intellectual child abuse" of her daughter Artie's attempts to teach the baby incorrect words.

Artie has good reason to subvert Dorothea's education, too. Or at least you understand why she would want to interrupt the influence of the eccentric grandmother. As a child, Artie involuntarily participated in a number of her mother's strange theories. In a particularly dramatic scene, young Artie contemplates her own inevitable fall perched atop a wooden tower with a pair of linen wings attached to her arms. Her mother Dorothea narrates behind her the idea that humans can indeed fly, despite popular conventions. This is the stuff good home movies are made of.

Cassidy Boyd '10 interpreted Artie's dilemma as a struggle to escape her mother's eccentricity and to deny her uncanny psychological resemblance to the rest of her family. She seemed desperate to distance herself, almost to the point of exasperation, but the depth of the problem seems underdeveloped. At her best, Boyd grappled with the tug of maternal devotion as Artie, dictionary in hand, drills Echo on the spelling of multi-syllable words over the phone. Boyd found here a rare drop of genuine fear, as it becomes apparent that the exercise is more for the mother's benefit than for the betterment of Echo's spelling abilities. The champ complains that "orbit" is too easy a word, but to Artie it is not the orthography but the meaning of the words that draws her to it. She cannot approach her daughter emotionally and instead revolves around her from a distance.

As her senior directing project, Myra Palmero '07 pulled together a varied assortment of tools to develop the interpersonal conflicts inherent in Blessing's text. She uses a pane of glass onstage to represent a sort of barrier within the family; they can see each other, but an invisible force somehow stifles communication. In a complex visualization of nostalgia, a projector shot onstage the home movies of Dorothea and her daughter on top of the wooden tower about to see if humans really can fly. When things get complicated, Palmero artfully intervened to help the audience navigate the intricate psyches of this group of nearly hysterical women.

The events of the play orbit around the spelling bee championship, where the overconfident Echo finds herself neck and neck with a nervous contender who can only guess at the spelling of the judges' words. Jacquie Antonson '10 sees Echo as sure of her own victory, confident that she "knows everything" and that the championship is "in the bag." The scene becomes narcissistic indulgence, and turns the audience at the moment where sympathy is what could save Echo from disapproval. She is not a vicious character, she simply misinterprets a sort of family burden to impress and achieve instilled in her since birth.

Antonson throws tantrums and pouts her way through an inconsistent performance. At first, the innocence about Echo's situation as the last in a long line of eccentrics is endearing, but it quickly becomes exasperating when witnessing what she does with her family identity. What saves the character is her relationship with Dorothea. Echo understands the complexity of her upbringing but, much like the audience, she is so irresistibly drawn toward her grandmother that her mother appears slighted and self-reproachful for having run away. Antonson allows her character to treat Artie with a good dose of mystery and earnest reverence that help to deepen the filial complications of the family. If only she treated the pivotal scene, the spelling bee, with the tenderness and the attention she elicited in other parts of the play.

Of course, it is during this scene that Echo answers the question we have all been asking ourselves. Her final word, the spelling of which wins her the championship and the fame she wants - Eleemosynary: of, relating to, or supported by charity. Eleemosynary the play does not make the concept easy to understand. No character gives freely or easily. No gift is accepted whole-heartedly. Not to mention the fact that "eleemosynary" is a mouthful. However, with clear and insightful acting and Palmero's directing prowess, this production does well to cut through the dysfunction and uncover the truly charitable, loving, and eccentric natures of these three women.