The show: “Third” at Hartford’s TheaterWorks.
What makes it special?: The last play by Wendy Wasserstein.
First impressions: There’s not much of a battle for the audience’s affection between a strong-willed, pioneering professor at a liberal college (think Wesleyan) and a polite white male student from the Midwest. All the student Woodson Bull III (nicknamed “Third”) has to do is show up and just present his earnest self and Jameson’s feminist fuse is lit and she loses it — her temper, the argument and us.
Wasserstein doesn’t do much to soften the social abrasiveness of Professor Laurie Jameson, and in the TheaterWorks production actor Kate Levy and director Rob Ruggiero follow suit.
With the central character of the play off-kilter, the flaws of Wasserstein’s work become even more apparent, which is a shame because there are plenty of intriguing ideas here. Perhaps too many as Wasserstein takes on leftist dogma, George W. Bush, Britney Spears and King Lear.
What’s the story?: Jameson is an esteemed professor in her field of literature, but right from the start we see that she isn’t a woman of her word. She says she wants her beliefs to be challenged and asks her students to look at things through “fresh eyes.” But it’s evident she resents any challenge and is stuck in her beliefs that she successfully fought for 30 years ago.
As soon as “Third” (Conor M. Hamill) shows up — whose language of “awesome,” “cool” and “have a nice day” visibly grates on her — she stereotypes him as a “walking red state” jock.
When she accuses him of plagiarizing a paper and brings him up on charges (the play’s credibility is more than a little strained here), it’s clear that it’s a manifestation of Jameson’s other issues: with her daughter (Olivia Hoffman), her distant husband (literally, he remains an off-stage character) and her elderly father (Edmond Genest, wonderful) who is slipping into dementia. And, oh yes, she is experiencing hot flashes. She is clearly in crisis, and her anger, fears and frustrations find a target with Third.
There are some lovely individual scenes, with her father, with her unseen psychiatrist and with a close friend and colleague who has cancer.
But other scenes seem forced, contrived or overreaching (the “Lear” parallel comes complete with a mad scene in a storm). Wasserstein’s habit of name dropping is in overload here and the play feels archly schematic.
Still, the heart of the piece is clear and, given Wasserstein’s history, at times touchingly human.
Wasserstein, whose plays have chronicled women’s progress and personal struggles in the last third of the 20th century (and slightly into the 21st) — most famously in “The Heidi Chronicles” — here gives yet another perspective of the journey of the contemporary woman of her generation, this time as an older artist looking back and acknowledging the uncertainties of life.
The play’s tender takeaway is that although time is short, it’s never too late for love, forgiveness, apology and a correction. (Wasserstein died in 2006 at the age of 55, just months after “Third” opened at Lincoln Center.)
And the cast?: Levy, who was stunning in “The Other Place,” is most effective when she shows her vulnerability. But there’s little to offset her character’s often cringe-inducing remarks that come close to mean-spiritedness.
Hamill, a Hartt School grad, makes an impressive bow here, giving Third a believable simplicity and intelligence, a charming, low-key humor and a clear-eyed sense of self.
Nice work, too, by Andrea Gallo as Nancy and Hoffman as Jameson’s daughter, in a clunkily written role.
Who will like it?: Fans of Wasserstein, feminist studies and Jane Austen.
Who won’t?: Those who don’t like their dogma messed with.
For the kids?: Older students will have lots to identify with. Kids, not so much.
Twitter review?: Grading on a curve: Wasserstein’s modern woman grows older, more troubled and eventually wiser in problematic play, production
Thoughts on leaving the parking lot?: The number of plays that challenge liberal assumptions and left-leaning audiences is limited so when a work by a leading progressive playwright asks some fundamental questions — without abdicating her beliefs —- it is welcome, even if it is imperfect.
It also seems right that for her final work, Wasserstein, a Yale School of Drama grad, returns to the setting of the first play that brought her to the public eye in 1977 — the college campus. There’s something about an academic environment that is fitting for her smart, self-aware, conflicted, characters who continue to examine their place in the world. It’s almost as if she’s come full circle to these uncommon women of her youth but with a perspective of one who has lived a fuller life although one cut far too short.
THIRD continues through Nov. 8 at TheaterWorks, 233 Pearl St., Hartford. The show runs 2 hours, including one intermission. Performances are Tuesdays through Thursdays at 7:30 p.m.; Fridays at 8 p.m., Saturdays at 2:30 and 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2:30 p.m. Tickets are $40 to $65. The exhibit room features the works of theater photographer Lanny Nagler. Information: theaterworkshartford.com and 860-527-7838.
