Sympathetic Magic at Bridge Street Theatre

In early November, a virtually forgotten masterpiece of the American stage comes to unforgettable life on the intimate stage of Catskill’s Bridge Street Theatre. For those familiar with Wilson’s works, you’ll recognize him as perhaps one of the finest playwrights for actors this country has ever produced. With a rich, deep, complex cast of eight, “Sympathetic Magic” contains enough event for an entire season of a daytime soap opera – with none of the suds.

“This is a script that has always fascinated and intrigued me,” says BST Associate Artist Steven Patterson, who’ll also be playing the role of Carl Conklin White in the production. “It seems as though theatre aficionados – and even fans of Lanford Wilson’s other works – have no idea that this play even exists. At my insistence, my partner John Sowle and I ventured into Manhattan a couple years back to see it being presented Off-Broadway on NYC’s Theatre Row. It wound up being what I considered a horribly misconceived production, and John had NO idea what the hell it was we’d seen. When we arrived home, I handed him a copy of the script and asked him, please, to just read it. Two days later, weeping openly, he finished it and said to me, ‘I had no idea. I think we may have to do this.’ Two seasons later, here we are, with a HUGE (for us), perfectly cast ensemble, about to launch into rehearsals.”

One of BST’s mission has always been to resurrect what they feel are neglected plays and put them back onstage where they belong. “Sympathetic Magic” ponders the cosmic implications of everyday actions in the story of a young astrophysicist who makes a potentially world-changing discovery just at the moment his long-time companion, a sculptor on the verge of a brilliant career, finds she is pregnant with his child. And yet, that’s not all that’s going on in the play. The sculptress is the daughter of a world renowned anthropologist, famed for her work both with tribes in Africa and gangs in U.S. inner cities, who is currently going blind. She also has a son, half-brother of the sculptress, who is an Episcopal Rector in the diocese of San Francisco, and has just broken off his relationship with the church’s choir master in order to try to live a celibate life. The cast also includes the astrophysicist’s narcissistic, by-the-book department head, his perpetually lovelorn young co-worker and the anthropologist’s assistant (the type of young woman every straight man seems to find himself falling in love with), who, unexpectedly, find themselves falling head over heels for one another. With its 1990s setting in San Francisco, AIDS also rears its head in both expected and unexpected ways.The intricate web of inter-relationships between these characters is limned in dialogue that crackles like a 1930s screwball comedy, albeit to far more subtle and serious ends.

Director John Sowle was a school valedictorian in Stillwater, OK way back in the day, and continued his studies at the Massacussets Institute of Technology, with the hopes of  becoming an astrophysicist himself one day until, he says, “I met one.” A BA in Mathematics at MIT led to an eventual PhD in Theatre at the University of California at Berkeley and to his current life in the Arts. “There’s so much in this play that mirrors events in my life, and given the utterly perfect cast we’ve assembled to embody these characters, I’m finding it impossible to work on preparing for rehearsals without the kind of thrill and excitement I’m rarely able to experience any more. Just imagining this set of actors in these roles makes me choke up.”

Featured in the cast are Brian Sheppard as Ian “Andy” Anderson, Molly Parker Myers as Barbara DeBiers, Seth McNeil as Don Walker, Timothy Dunn as Pauly Scott, Abby Burris as Sue Olmstead, Nico Ager as Mickey Picco, Terry Sidell as Liz Barnard, and Steven Patterson as Carl Conklin White. BST Artistic and Managing Director John Sowle directs and designs the sets, with Carmen Borgia creating sound and lighting, and Michelle Rogers on costumes. Hannrose Manning is the Production Stage Manager and artwork for the production was created by Dina Bursztyn.

One additional item of interest. Terry Sidell (Liz Barnard) and Steven Patterson (Carl Conklin White) will be appearing together onstage in this production for the first time since playing Cecily Cardew and Algernon Moncrieff in the El Modena High School production of Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Earnest” in Orange County, CA, back in 1967!

Experience one of the most stimulating and little-known plays in the American canon in a production that you’re unlikely to see anywhere else any time soon.

This production of SYMPATHETIC MAGIC is supported by generous grants from FAIRGAME for the Theatre Arts and the Bank of Greene County. The Production Sponsor is Jay Lesenger.

Authors

• Landford Wilson