BY WILLIAM FERRALL
Contributing Writer n A.R. Gurney's "the Golden Age," Actors Theatre of Nantucket has brought to the
stage a sweet and lovely reminiscence about the old days.
Tom, an aspiring young writer, had come to the household of Isabel Hastings Hoyt to
hear her recollections of the "glimmerings of a 'Golden Age.'"
In her 80s now, Hoyt was a regular on the jazz and literary scene of the 1920s, a heady
time of bigger-than-life personages in music, art and politics. To here her tell it, she knew them all: Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Coolidge, Picasso, on and on.
Tom (Paul Singleton) knows this because he has found her image and references to her in numerous photo magazines and in accounts of the era. That is what has brought
him to her. Tom thinks Isabel is the present-day key to his ambitions as a writer.
He wants to write his own account of that time and to draw inspiration from this living
member of his hero Fitzgerald's coterie.
But Isabel (Jetti Ames) lives only in the distant and sometimes cloudy past. Since just after World War II she has holed up in her
Manhattan brownstone - imagine a grand Gramercy Park mansion - surrounded by reminders and mementos of the past. As Isabel's live-in granddaughter says, "This is her loot."
"I'm a rare bird," Isabel declares early on to Tom. "I've given up meeting people."
Tom connects even more with Isabel's
declarations, because he, too, has buried himself in the "aura, magic and mystery" of an earlier era. Tom's estranged wife has pronounced him "lost in the Lost Generation,
so in love with the past that I can't love in the present."
Isabel, then, seems Tom's perfect match: a living artifact linking him to an idealized
past. Isabel dangles that past before Tom, but she has other plans for him too.
In her granddaughter, Isabel has her greatest and "most original" work. Her
husband and her children have died tragically. Now near the end of her life, with only mostly the past to surround her, Isabel's only anticipation is ensuring the welfare and care of
her granddaughter, Virginia (Bonnie Comley).
Ensuring Virginia's good future will be no easy task. Already, Virginia has taken and
abandoned two husbands. She continues to fight a drinking problem, for which Isabel has sent her to several institutions.
The result so far has been Isabel's
depleted fortune and Virginia's ongoing dependence.
"I'm so dependent on other things," signs Virginia. "I wish I could be free."
For Tom, Isabel weaves enticing stories of the past and hints at undiscovered manuscripts by the literary greats including Tom's beloved Fitzgerald.
Was Isabel a lover taken by Fitzgerald and used as the model for Daisy in "The Great Gatsby?" Did Fitzgerald leave an unpublished story about his encounter with Isabel?
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THEATRE
REVIEW
_________________________________ Those suggestions are powerful lures to Tom, as Isabel weaves the web into which
she draws him. Isabel even urges a sexual encounter between Tom and Virginia by reminding him that sex is at the heart of The Golden Age.
"You have lists, games and
manipulations," Tom finally lashes out at Isabel.
In this triangle of Isabel, Tom and Virginia, playwright Gurney has created a rich tapestry. Like her associates of the
1920s, Isabel also rises larger than life. She recounts meetings with Churchill and Trotsky.
She displays paintings she created of famous visitors to her studio. The
cast feels bigger than the three visible characters on stage.
Are her recollections more conjecture than fact? Are her paintings really of second-rate authors?
Finally, their memories and illusions matter more because both Isabel and Tom live in the notion of the era, not in the era itself. Most of what is left are a few pieces of
loot and the mere romance of "The Golden Age."
The part of Isabel seems written with ATN veteran Jetti Ames in mind. Whether wearing an orange brocade gown or a smart shift
with a blood red scarf, Ames always appears regal and of that other era.
As Isabel, Ames evinces the former worldly, glamorous socialite. She draws marvelous moments of
reverie about the early years, but remains enticing and alluring.
Paul Singleton creates and entirely believable Tom with a firm display of Tom's enthusiasm and lust for his
glorified era of The Lost Generation.
As he tries to unravel Isabel's net and tries to discern her truth, Singleton shows a real confusion and self-doubting.
Gurney has written Virginia as a vulnerable, uncertain granddaughter in the shadow of her grandmother. Her dependence on Isabel is clear, as is her inability to be free.
Comley nicely captures both qualities of Virginia, rightly playing her as retiring and unsure.
Director Stewart F. Lane, a Tony Award-winning Broadway producer, director and
writer, has worked his cast and the ATN theater to almost maximum results. He has created an effective and and engaging evening in the theater. A standing-room only audience on Tuesday reflected
that success.
Anne Duston Cheney's lighting casts a mellow, dreamy and yellowed by age feeling to this production. Richard Cary, ATN's Artistic Director and set designer of
"Golden," has built a rich interior to draw the audience into this world. Jane Karakula has assembled a colorful, elegant wardrobe for Isabel.
"The Golden Age," Actors Theatre of Nantucket. Two Centre Street in the basement of the Methodist Church. Tuesdays through Saturdays, through Sept. 11. 8:30 pm. Tickets $15. About 2 hours running time with one 15 minute intermission. Reservations recommended at 228-6325.
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