Exit/Entrance
cast list
Lara Hillier, Greg Mullavey, Linda Thorson, David L. Townsend
directed by
M. Burke Walker
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Irish playwright Aidan Mathews's latest play, Exit/Entrance, is about two couples at two pivotal stages in their lives. Both couples are named Helen and Charles. In the first act, the older incarnations of Helen and Charles are moving out of their apartment. In the second act, the younger Helen and Charles (who may or may not be the younger iterations of the older Helen and Charles), are just moving in and getting settled.
The play, which is being produced as part of the First Irish Festival, treads no new ground but does contain considerable charm. Each act takes place in six scenes between 6 PM and midnight on a single day. Both of the Charles characters are heady American professors, wrapped up in their books, while the Helens, both of them Irish, are more impulsive, perhaps even slightly unstable.
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As it appears at 59E59 Theaters, there is a certain uneven quality to the play as a whole. While I preferred the younger set of actors - the lively David L. Townsend, who has a sensitive, bookish intuitiveness about him, and Lara Hillier, who's full of charm and finds several moments in which to languish throughout - it's the older actors who have the more fascinating (and more elusive) material into which to delve.
The idea of not knowing whether our first-act protagonists are the same as those in the second is a fascinating one. To me, these people seemed to be the same throughout, as if the second act were simply a flashback from the first. There's no clearcut answer to this quandary that the play poses, but it's also uncertain whether the answers are quite worth pursuing.
The first act, with its foreboding sense of imminent closure and seething resentments, is a far cry from the lighter second act. Mathews's writing is strong throughout on the level of imagery but nevertheless frustrating. Scenes never overstay their welcome and Mathews's ruminations about age and love are heartfelt and, at times, powerful, but the mysterious questions the play poses are too often unanswered.
Director M. Burke Walker has directed the actors, both young and old, with incredible nuance but still one wishes there were a bit more substance overall. Ultimately, the play, which has its moments for sure, seems more an exercise in themes than a fully realized play. There are plenty of great ideas here backed up by fantastic performances (Linda Thorson is also riveting as the older Helen), but there are too many loose ends and too few moments of payoff to recommend the play for itself.
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New York reviews
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Three Sisters, Classic Stage Company
The Piano Lesson, Yale Repertory Theatre
The Momentum, Laurie Beechman Theatre
The Walk Across America for Mother Earth, La MaMa E.T.C.
John Gabriel Borkman, BAM Harvey Theater
Blood From a Stone, Acorn Theatre
Malfi, Inc., Theatre 54
Pieces, 59E59 Theaters
A Delicate Balance, Yale Repertory Theatre
The Memorandum, Beckett Theatre
The Scottsboro Boys, Lyceum Theatre
Driving Miss Daisy, Golden Theatre
Futura, TBG Theatre
La Bete, The Music Box Theatre
Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre
A Life in the Theatre, Schoenfeld Theatre
In Transit, 59E59 Theaters
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