Review: SIGHT UNSEEN Looks Deeply Into the Emotional Complexities of Modern Art

SIGHT UNSEEN by Pulitzer Prize winner Donald Margulies opened on Broadway in 2004 and went on to win an Obie Award for Best New American Play, an Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Off-Broadway Play, and brought Laura Linney a Theatre World Award and nominations for both the Tony and Drama Desk Awards. It centers on celebrated artist Jonathan Waxman who, despite immense popularity, yearns for something more in his life. His soul-searching leads him to visit an old girlfriend and former muse he selfishly dismissed over a decade before.

A sexy and culturally diverse take on the play is now being presented by Wasatch Theatrical Ventures, directed by Nicole Dominguez at the Lounge Theatre in Hollywood. American artist Jonathan Waxman (Jason Weiss), as superstar artist, attends a celebrated opening of his work at a prominent London Gallery. The hazardous and humorous entanglement begins when, upon his arrival in England, he visits his former lover and muse Patricia (Sameerah Luqmaan-Harris) in a village where she now lives with her British husband Nick (Mark Belnick). After seeing an early painting that hangs in her house, Jonathan realizes that he must recapture the inspiration and purity he felt when he first painted her. And of course, their mutual attraction from years ago gets rekindled right in front of her husband's eyes.

Plunged into the exorbitant hype of the art world, where a publicist is as necessary as a brush and canvas, Jonathan is interviewed by a German reporter Grete (Casey McKinnon) who questions every movie during his career, claiming he bought his way to fame. Jonathan then begins to flail in this toxic triangle as he defends his work, his relationships, and even himself against anti-Semitism and sexism.

While all four actors are accomplished actors, all are somewhat lacking in their ability to connect emotionally with each other creating a very disjointed storyline. The actors seem to be playing to the audience rather than to each other when it is imperative we are pulled into the emotional depth of their relationships, which never happens.

And if Nick is meant to be a British archeologist, why doesn't Belnick speak with the appropriate accent? And if McKinnon is playing a German reporter, but her accent does not represent that nationality, although her attitude certainly does.

Playing against type, the all-American blonde Shiksa which is called for in the script, African-American Luqmaan-Harris brings a different ethnic awareness to the role, making it much easier to see how Jonathan's Jewish family would certainly have rejected her as his love interest early in his career. Her stage presence reminds us how open casting against type can benefit the hidden meaning of a playwright's script, especially since her race is never referred to, only that she is not one of Jonathan's tribe since she is not Jewish.

Faring best is Jason Weiss as the artist who wears his heart on his sleeve and takes inspiration from all he sees. His smallest character choices and extreme sensory awareness reveal the depth of his deep understanding of an artist's soul. But he never answer the question why he only paint nudes and merely explains it is up to the viewers to take from his art whatever they get from it. "Not everyone has the chance to ask an artist why he paints," is his explanation. I assume that is why during his interview at the gallery, all the frames were empty so as not to expose the audience to what Nick describers as "pornography" and leaving it up to us to see in this art whatever we want to see. Somehow it felt like an unfinished set to me. Even abstracts would have been a better choice.

However, Adam Haas Hunter's set design is one of the highlights of the show, each time a wall is opened creating a new room in which the action takes place. It was an amazing feat given the very small stage area. And the actors did manage to stay within Michael Gend's lighting design in each space, a real challenge, no doubt, for Dominguez's toned down directing.

SIGHT UNSEEN runs 8pm on Friday and Saturdays, 7pm on Sundays through April 26, 2015 (no performances April 3rd - 5th). The Lounge Theatre is located at 6201 Santa Monica Blvd in Hollywood, CA, with ample street parking. Tickets are $25. Reservations: (323) 960-4412 or online at www.plays411.com/unseen

Wasatch Theatrical Adventures: (Producers) is a not-for-profit production company that presents great American plays - penned exclusively by American playwrights. They aim to ensure that great American theatre is available to all, not just those able to spend top dollar for Broadway productions. In the playhouses that WTV chooses, every seat is a "premium" seat. The short space between actors and audience creates a unique theatre experience. This dynamic cannot be produced, at any price, in large halls or amphitheaters and deserves to be kept alive in the Los Angeles theatre scene.

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