Theatre in Review: Pen Pals (Theatre at St. Clement's)At first glance, Pen Pals looks alarmingly conventional: Drawing on the model of A. R. Gurney's Love Letters, it uses a reader's theatre format and revolving cast to delve into the decades-long correspondence of two friends, one American and one British. But playwright Michael Griffo is after something quite difficult in trying to mine compelling theatre out of its characters' quotidian joys and sorrows. It's a novelistic approach, which could easily wither away onstage or collapse into easy sentimentality but his patient application of seemingly trivial details pays off: What begins as a gentle, mildly amusing evening of girl talk evolves into the surprisingly touching account of a friendship that grows, grows apart, and comes together again, enduring...well, almost everything. The pen pals are Bernie (for Bernadette), a bubbly New Jersey teen, and Mags (for Margaret), unhappy about growing up in Sheffield, England, and already displaying plenty of her hometown's signature steel. It is 1955 and their letters are filled with films like Magnificent Obsession and Song of Bernadette plus paeans to the likes of Ricky Nelson, Rock Hudson, and Natalie Wood. Bernie, in love with acting, excels in school productions of Arsenic and Old Lace (where she upstages her co-star and nemesis) and Oklahoma! Mags, analyzing her strengths and weaknesses, notes, "I love English the best, I don't like maths, and I usually blow things up in science. I'm jolly good in art though and I enjoy drawing." Then again, her art skills land her in hot water when she is caught out sketching her hated rival in the role of Joan of Arc, going up in flames. The initial chitchat accurately reflects the characters' adolescent innocence and lust for life. (Bernie, dragooned by Mags into checking out a certain classic, announces, delightedly, "The woman in the attic was Mr. Rochester's first wife! Jane Eyre is now officially the best book I have ever read.") The current cast has the right attack. Nancy McKeon retains a certain girlishness as Bernie, a go-along-to-get-along type, who, her theatrical dreams quashed by her parents, allows herself to drift into marriage and motherhood. Johanna Day, adopting a formidably brittle British accent, bites off each line as if sampling an especially delicious crumpet. It's an effective approach for a character fond of sweeping, authoritative opinions, whether giving Bernie a full blast of tough love or, in middle age, announcing, "For the life of me, I will never understand the appeal of Paul McCartney." (You must hear Day say it, but I promise you, it gets a big laugh.) Even during the odd period of estrangement, Bernie and Mags remain each other's lodestars as they face just about everything life can throw at one: sudden deaths; second marriage; abortion; sexual harassment; an extramarital affair; ailing, elderly parents; spouses with multiple sclerosis and early onset dementia; and the awkward moment when one's son introduces his longtime male partner. (As Mags gracefully tells Bernie, "To me, you've always been like rain on the other side of a window: lively, comforting, but just out of reach.") The women sometimes don't see eye to eye -- indeed, they can disagree violently -- but can't help returning to each other and the correspondence that proves to be a lifeline more than once. (Pen Pals has been produced in partnership with Susan G. Komen, the breast cancer not-for-profit, but that disease is only one of many curve balls tossed in Bernie and Mags' direction.) Director SuzAnne Barabas, artistic director of New Jersey Rep in Long Branch, from whence came this production, has a nice way with her actresses, who demonstrate a palpable chemistry even when spending the evening at a physical remove. (In the coming weeks, the roles will be taken by Catherine Curtin, Sharon Lawrence, Nia Vardalos, Ellen McLaughlin, Mary Beth Peil, and Kate Burton, among others.) The production, designed for its previous engagement, is pretty bare-bones: Jessica Parks' set consists of a few pieces of furniture, and Jill Nagle's lighting concentrates on shifting focus from stage right to stage left and back again. Nicholas Simone's expansive, evocative sound design includes the "Flower Song" from the opera Lakme, "Sixteen Candles," and "Carol of the Bells," along with crashing waves, seagulls, church bells, and airplanes. David C. Woolard, serving as costume consultant, has seen that Day and McKeon are appropriately dressed. Indeed, one comes to know Bernie and Mags so well that if the production ever put a foot wrong, it would be painfully obvious. Fortunately, this never happens: Griffo has convincingly penned the story of two lifelong pals, guiding them to a final, late-in-life reckoning that will have audience members discreetly rolling out their Kleenex. Pen Pals sneaks up on you; by the finale, these women feel like old friends. --David Barbour 
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