Linda Lavin and Sarah Paulson
(Photo credit: Joan Marcus)
Although Donald Margulies’ drama, Collected Stories, has been seen twice before in New York, the Manhattan Theater Club revival now at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre starring Tony and Golden Globe Award winner Linda Lavin is its first time on Broadway.
This literate and elegantly written two-hander was first presented Off Broadway back in 1997 by the Manhattan Theater Club starring Maria Tucci and Debra Messing as the creative writing teacher and her protégé. The following year it appeared in a production that offered Uta Hagen her New York last stage role. Now Lavin brings her impressive and subtle performance to New York, having played the role of Ruth Steiner both in Los Angeles and on public television.
Collected Stories offers juicy roles for two actresses who are on-stage together almost the entire length of the play. To the Greenwich Village apartment of college professor Ruth Steiner (Lavin) comes Lisa Morrison (Sarah Paulson) for her creative writing tutorial. Awkward, self-conscious and unsure of herself, Lisa is in awe of Steiner, who is one of her heroines. Thirty years before Steiner had published a volume of short stories which was reviewed as having its “finger on the pulse of the city,” but she has failed to follow it up with a second book. Steiner is acerbic, opinionated, reclusive, and brilliant at her job of mentoring young writers. She sees talent in Lisa which needs nurturing and hard work to reach its fulfillment. She also sees herself in earlier days.
Over the course of the next six years, Lisa becomes Ruth’s assistant and the roles of teacher and protégé deepen into that of friends and eventually colleagues when Lisa is published. Lisa becomes the daughter that Ruth never had. However, Lisa is ambitious and hungry for a career. Earlier on it is established that Ruth has high ethical standards and is not unwilling to speak out for what she believes. When the now successful Lisa appropriates the central event in Ruth’s life, a topic she has not chosen to write about, for her own first novel, the stage is set for a monumental confrontation of searing proportions.
Like John Logan’s Red, Margulies in Collected Stories explores the symbiotic relationship of student and teacher: how much does the veteran have to pass on to the novice. Eventually, the play moves on to the question of how honest colleagues, who are now friendly rivals, ought to be toward each other. “You have stolen my life” Ruth declares when Lisa publishes her first novel. Ultimately, the play’s theme is fact versus fiction as Lisa defends herself with the argument that as she has fictionalized Ruth’s story, she has made it her own, even though she has not lived it. The writing which is always graceful also references several of their great writing contemporaries who serve as touchstones for Ruth and Lisa’s conversations.
Director Lynne Meadow has allowed the two actresses to delineate their complex, changing relationship by keeping out of their way in this unfussy, realistic staging. Lavin makes Ruth Steiner a formidable presence. She makes use of the verbal putdown, her sense of timing, her quiet use of body language and her vocal delivery to create a recognizable, full bodied character. Always in full command of the stage, she also makes Steiner a quirky presence with mannerisms all her own.
While Lavin’s Ruth Steiner is an extremely subtle performance, Paulson may have the more difficult role. She journeys from gushing school girl to sophisticated colleague and rival. Without our even being aware of it, she changes before our eyes from being uncomfortable, dependent and embarrassed to being in control, independent and secure. She makes a worthy partner and adversary and is never overwhelmed by Lavin’s bigger presence as the famous writer and educator.
Since the entire play takes place in the living room/dining room of Ruth’s apartment in which she has lived for 31 years, the setting is almost a character in the play. Santo Loquasto has created a book-lined setting with mementos and pictures obviously collected over many years in comfortable colors that is easy to look at for the course of the play. That the set is neither cluttered nor shabby says a great deal about the person who lives in it. Jane Greenwood has given Lavin outfits with sweaters and scarves in subdued colors that seem exactly right. Paulson’s costume changes reflect her newly acquired sense of style as her character matures. Obadiah Eaves’ original music between the scenes sounds exactly like what Professor Steiner would listen to.
Even if you have seen Donald Margulies’ Collected Stories before, the exquisite Manhattan Theatre Club production is well worth seeing. Its exploration of the fine line between fact and fiction seems even more pertinent today than it did in 1997, and the teamwork of Linda Lavin and Sarah Paulson is a thing of beauty. More satisfying than Margulies’ new play Time Stands Still which appeared at the MTC’s Friedman Theatre earlier this season, Collected Stories is on its way to becoming an American classic.
(through June 13)
Manhattan Theatre Club, at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, 261 W. 47th Street, in Manhattan
For tickets, call 212-239-6200 or http://www.Telecharge.com