'Tryst' With a Twist

Tryst

Written by Karoline Leach, Directed by Joe Brancato

Scenery Designed by Michael Schweikardt, Costumes Designed by Alejo Vietti, Lighting Designed by Martin E. Vreeland, Sound Designed by Johnna Doty, Stage Manager Emily F. McMullen, Assistant Stage Manager Peter Crewe

CAST: Mark Shanahan (George Love), Andrea Maulella (Adelaide Pinchin)

Performances through January 30 at Merrimack Repertory Theatre, Lowell, MA                  Box Office 978-654-4MRT (4678) or www.merrimackrep.org

Tryst is another shining example of what the Merrimack Repertory Theatre does so well. A smart, tightly crafted psychological character study, the play features two accomplished actors who inhabit complex, damaged people. The design elements are simple and of the less-is-more variety, creating place and adding atmosphere, but never detracting from the intensity of the relationship between the performers. Mark Shanahan and Andrea Maulella have been involved with Director Joe Brancato and the evolution of Tryst since its 2006 production at the Alley Theatre in Houston, as well as the 2008 iteration at Westport Country Playhouse, and it shows in their total absorption of George Love and Adelaide Pinchin.      

British playwright Karoline Leach worked as both an actress and director before she turned to writing, and those experiences inform her theatrical creation of an intricate plot and richly drawn characters. Brancato and the cast add splashes of humor, psychological insights, and touching human elements of their own, but they follow Leach's blueprint to build suspense through twists and turns to a dramatic climax. As much as the playwright entices us to care about George and Adelaide, her focus on their personas is principally in service to the plot and theme.     

Set in Edwardian London, Tryst tells the tale of a handsome con man who preys on simple, plain women of some means, courting them and marrying them in a whirlwind of compliments and affection, only to abscond with their nest eggs the day after the wedding night. At the outset, George introduces himself to us by boasting of his charm and sharing some of his trade secrets. While he freezes in place, the spotlight reveals Adelaide, quiet and demure as she describes her life and her employment in the back room of a hat shop with four other misfits, "where the customers can't see us." Slight in stature and devoid of self-importance, Adelaide appears to be George's polar opposite.

George and Adelaide take turns breaking through the fourth wall to explain themselves, as if campaigning for the audience to choose sides even before the game is on. Like other plays before it (Sleuth comes to mind), Tryst does involve a game of chance with much more than money at stake. In this case, George establishes the rules of engagement and is well on his way to taking home the prize of Adelaide's small inheritance from her Auntie Myra - a beloved heirloom brooch and fifty pounds.  However, he begins to realize that hearts and minds are part of the ante in this game as Adelaide blossoms under his romantic attention (à la Lizzie Curry in The Rainmaker) into something more than a mark. Her behavior leads him into uncharted territory and he has to wonder if the player is being played.

Not unlike her leading man, Leach uses a combination of sleight and misdirection to charm her audience. We think we've seen these characters before and know exactly how it will all turn out. Only we haven't...and we don't. Shanahan and Maulella play the varied angles of their roles to perfection, providing us with sufficient tasty bait to make us bite the hook, and then reeling us in until they can throw the big net over our collective heads. In the process, they each will break your heart when they expose their characters' internal stories and impart the life lessons that George and Adelaide are trying desperately to believe: "Happiness is finding the good in what you've got" and "Things are what we make them."

Michael Schweikardt's two-scene sliding set and Alejo Vietti's costumes establish the 1910 Edwardian period, and the use of theatrical fog in combination with Martin Vreeland's dim lighting implies the multitude of secrets between George and Adelaide. Johnna Doty adds to the atmosphere with mournful incidental string music, as well as foreboding thunder and rain sounds. The play runs about two hours with an intermission, deviating from the trend of ninety minutes sans interval. However, I think the break in Tryst serves to increase the discomfort level and add to the intrigue. Plus, the audience gets fifteen minutes between acts to speculate on the ending and bathe in self-congratulation.

Let me just leave you with one last line from George Love: "There's only two kinds of people in the world: the takers and the took." After you see the play, let me know which category describes you.

Photo Credit: Meghan Moore (Andrea Maulella, Mark Shanahan)

  

 

 

 

 

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