![]() ![]() The costumes are formal, the banter witty, the setting, baronial. ![]() The initial scenes have the look and feel of an Oscar Wilde play. Langley, a talented pianist, attracts the attentions of one Milly Ashmore (Francie Swift), and preparations for a most improbable marriage are set into motion by Homer, an attorney, who has enough sense to recognize a good thing when he sees it. These, we understand, comprise the golden years of their lives, when their eccentricities remained in check and had not yet made living in the world impossible. In the first act, we meet Homer (Peter Frechette) and Langley (Reg Rogers) in the drawing room of their family's Victorian mansion. The story of the Collyer brothers is told in two parts. Only Tom Stoppard comes close to the verbal facility Greenberg puts on display. These are wordsmith savants, spewing an endless circumlocution that gradually draws the audience to the edge of their seats. Hyper-articulation points one in the right direction. Articulate does not capture the verbal skills Greenberg attributes to the brothers. They are reported to have died in an avalanche of collected debris, but as conceived by Greenberg they lived in an avalanche of words. Their tragic end remains a footnote in local lore.īeyond that, we understand the two brothers to be figments of Mr. Sadly, their eccentricities led eventually to their living and dying in isolation. The Collyers once lived in a 5th Avenue mansion in Harlem, which has now been replaced by a parking lot. Unlike the Neil Simon characters, however, Greenberg's misfits are loosely based on an actual family from turn of the 20th century New York. Homer and Langley Collyer are the most fascinating characters created by an American playwright since Oscar Madison and Felix Ungar. This play, perhaps even more than his Pulitzer-nominated Three Days of Rain, suggests that he alone among his contemporaries has the talent to break free from the narrowly familiar to write the big play. All this and more is readily apparent to anyone who sees his most recent play The Dazzle which opened March 5th at the Gramercy Theatre. He has a mordant sense of humor comparable to that of Joe Orton. He is in possession of a wicked mind, reminiscent of Oscar Wilde. Greenberg is a huge talent and a subversive theatre artist. He is the sort of playwright whose work one wants to follow.īut such impressions miss the mark. "I like him," or "what interesting characters" one can easily imagine the intelligent theatergoer saying after seeing a good production of, say, Eastern Standard, or Hurrah, at Last. Those familiar with his work are bound to have formed a positive impression of the author. This is not to say that Greenberg is hard to like. Not a star writer, not a person about town, he doesn't appear ready to mount the barricades. His opinions are neither controversial nor seemingly of consequence. His pronouncements on the theatre and his work are offered flatly, with modesty. Much of his writing gives the impression that he is an everyday talent. Richard Greenberg is easily misunderstood. Some Facts about the Real Collyer Brothers Buy tickets from 're our enzyme - in your presence reactions take place. At Found 111 theatre, London, until 30 January 2016.I only jib at Greenberg’s conclusion that rampant individualism, however crazed or eccentric, is inherently superior to social conformity. The most damning word the brothers use about each other is “ordinary”: at one point Homer suggests Langley is becoming a mere “garden variety neurotic” and he looks to the audience and claims: “No matter what you say, our life is better than yours.” I can understand the play is a testament to the power of sibling devotion in the most bizarre circumstances. Yet something about the play disturbs me. Both actors are hypnotic and the exquisite Joanna Vanderham as Milly radiates a damaged sensuality. ![]() He mixes a child’s rapt wonderment with a native cunning.ĭavid Dawson, with eyes that constantly shift in their sockets like silver balls in a puzzle box, suggests Homer is an unhinged fantasist driven by an overpowering protective urge. Scott, in contrast to his TV work as Moriarty in Sherlock, plays Langley as a wide-eyed Blakeian innocent who can find a world in a grain of sand. But although Ben Stones’s design could do more to distinguish between the two sections, Simon Evans’s finely calibrated production makes clear this is a play about fraternal love. If the first half has echoes of Henry James and Edith Wharton, the second half is pure American gothic and you can feel Greenberg resorting to increasingly implausible devices to keep the action moving. Joanna Vanderham, left, radiates a damaged sensuality alongside David Dawson and Andrew Scott. ![]()
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