It may all take place under the crumbling stone arches of The Pavilion, but Craig Wright’s play of that name, which opened Friday night at Next Act Theater, is really several plays. At the core, it’s a sweet, somewhat melodramatic romance about a couple trying to come to terms with traumatic events of the past. It also is a meditation on time and destiny, rendere
d in the somewhat purple prose of “the narrator,” who does all those great narrator tricks—you know, like making shooting stars appear on cue. Set in the Minnesota burg of Pine City, Minnesota, it’s also a comic slice of small town life with a gaggle of characters that seem like they popped out of a season of The Simpsons.
In the first act, Wright’s three plays bounce around like bumper cars, and director David Cecsarini does a good job of keeping them from jumping the guard rail and crashing into onlookers. It helps to have Angela Ianonne at the wheel—she shifts nimbly between roles as Wright’s cosmic narrator to the assorted alumni of Pine City High School’s class of 1980, who have assembled at the pavilion for their 20th class reunion. Characters appear and disappear with only a shift in body and voice, and Iannone never even scuffs her snazzy silver shoes.
In this elbow-to-elbow crowd of stoner mayors and vitriolic wives (all surrounded by a nostalgiac ‘80s mise en scene), we barely get to know the two main characters, Peter and Kari (Mark Ulrich and Mary MacDonald Kerr). We are clear on one thing: Peter’s looking for forgiveness and perhaps more, and Kari is having none of it. Wright toys around with hints and nudges that suggest a past tragedy, but the climactic revelation at the end the act makes it seem like he’s decided to start a whole new play from scratch.
Fortunately, things quiet down in Act Two, and the play finds its heart and soul in the couple’s tentative dance of catharsis and forgiveness. At Next Act, it’s revealed primarily in the beautiful performance of MacDonald Kerr, who embodies a shining life force amid tragic circumstances. Lest my own prose get too purple, I’ll just say that there’s heartbreak and honesty in her tears. And MacDonald’s emotional clarity matches the clear-sighted truths that lie at the end of Wright’s story. This pavilion may be a little ornate for its own good, but Cecsarini’s production is soundly constructed with a killer view of the great beyond.
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