Theatre in Review: Natural Affection (The Actors Company Theatre/Theatre Row)

	Kathryn Erbe and Chirs Bert. Photo: Marielle Solan Photography

We're lucky to have the likes of The Actors Company Theatre, The Mint Theater, and Keen Company, all of which have made it their mission to curate our theatrical past. It wasn't that long ago that no producing organization in New York would touch unfamiliar titles from previous decades -- but how can we understand the American theatre tradition if everyone acts like it was born yesterday? I'm especially grateful for TACT's current production, Natural Affection, by William Inge, a difficult, not-really-successful work that is nevertheless not to be missed by anyone who is interested in this great American playwright.

Like his good friend Tennessee Williams, Inge could do no wrong in the 1950s; he turned out one Broadway hit after another, each of which promptly made its way to Hollywood, where the film versions earned even more acclaim. But when his run of luck ended, it all came to a crashing halt. A Loss of Roses managed to run only three weeks in 1959, followed by Natural Affection, which lasted only a little over a month in 1963. After that, there was one more new Broadway effort, Where's Daddy?, a fast flop in 1966. Not too many years later, tormented by alcoholism and personal demons, Inge killed himself.

The promotional materials for Natural Affection suggest that it was a victim of the 1963 newspaper strike, a plausible theory at first glance, given that it featured a starry cast (the legendary Kim Stanley plus Harry Guardino and Tom Bosley) and a hot director (Tony Richardson). Having seen Natural Affection, this argument no longer persuades: The wonder is that anyone thought it had the slightest chance of commercial success, for this is a work of almost unrelieved gloom from a writer who understood depression from the inside out.

Unlike most of Inge's plays, which explored the unappeased longings behind the lace curtains of small Kansas towns, Natural Affection is set in a gray, wintery Chicago of cheaply built high-rise apartment buildings filled with strivers fruitlessly hustling to get ahead. Sue Barker, a buyer for a department store, lives with her lover, Bernie Slovenk, formerly a bartender and currently trying to make a go of it as a Cadillac salesman. They share a profound sexual connection, but trouble lurks in their paradise. Sue, who is older and desperately in need of security, wants to get married; Bernie resists, refusing to commit as long as Sue is the more successful partner. Inge wastes no time in establishing that handsome, sexy Bernie is one of life's natural losers, a blowhard afflicted with dreams that reside forever beyond his reach.

Another, and more disruptive, source of tension appears on the horizon when Donnie, Sue's son, comes for a Christmas visit. Years earlier, Sue, only 18 and abandoned by Donnie's father, put the boy up for adoption; since then, their relationship has been, at best, intermittent. Donnie is a wild child, with a barely submerged violent streak and quite a history with women; at the age of 14, he was being kept by a prostitute. He has been in trouble with the law, too, and he arrives at Sue's apartment direct from reform school. Sue thinks he is on holiday leave, but Donnie brings the news that if Sue is willing to take him in, he can forgo the last year of his sentence.

Sue's confused and frankly ambivalent reaction to this revelation sets the plot in motion, as she, Donnie, and Bernie form a triangle made all the more explosive by the fact that Donnie's feelings for Sue may not be strictly of the filial kind. Adding fuel to the fire are next-door neighbors Vince, a booze-soaked ad exec who pays too much attention to Bernie, and Vince's wife, Claire, a platinum blonde mantrap who enjoys the odd interlude with Bernie and who wouldn't mind adding Donnie to her roster of admirers.

There's no use pretending that Natural Affection is a great play or even a very good one. The plotting is haphazard -- do reform schools really send their wards home without informing the parents? Sue's decision to give up Donnie isn't fully explored, and Inge waits too long to address the complex mother-son dynamic that may include incestuous feelings. Of course, this being an Inge play, sexuality, usually frustrated, must be at the root of every character's motivations, resulting in a rather untidy pileup of dysfunctions. With this many tense, unhappy people thrown together, disaster must follow, but when it does -- with a shocking act of violence -- it doesn't really feel earned.

And yet, for all of that, Natural Affection is a fascinating work with several powerful passages, all of which are fully realized in Jenn Thompson's acute and lovingly detailed production. Kathryn Erbe nails Sue's conflicting emotions as she struggles to hold this ad hoc family together; she also makes a fine thing of a speech recalling the bond she felt when nursing the infant Donnie. Alec Beard persuasively captures Bernie's strutting, sexually confident manner, as well as the emptiness behind it. Chris Bert makes a striking debut as Donnie, his eyes fixed on these putative adults, in search of their acceptance. As Claire, Victoria Mack effectively swans around the stage in peignoirs and other too-consciously chic outfits, lasciviously eyeballing any man in her orbit. (In one of the more amusing passages -- a discussion of Broadway shows -- Claire condemns Sweet Bird of Youth, saying, "I don't see why we can't have plays that are respectable." She should talk, considering the plans she has for her free time.)

Best of all is John Pankow's Vince, whose fun-loving manner gets sloppier and more embarrassing with each double vodka; in the play's most harrowing passage, he torpedoes a Christmas Eve revel, savagely speaking truths no one else wants to hear before passing out altogether. Later, clutching Bernie's hand a little too long and a little too intensely, he sadly muses on a life that has bottomed out, leaving him with no expectation of pleasure. "There haven't been any good pictures since Norma Shearer," he says, piling detail on detail in a grim depiction of an existence cheapened by standardized goods and standardized emotions. It's a remarkably bleak vision, and yet Pankow makes something almost lyrical of it. His performance is reason enough to see Natural Affection.

This is also one of the most intelligently designed productions I've seen all season. John McDermott's set, depicting the living room and bedroom of Sue's apartment, as well as the outside hallway, is a marvel of period detail, from the carved wood hi-fi to the patterned sofa and bedroom set with an Asian screen on the wall. Mary Louise Geiger's lighting, taking a cue from the many practical lamps on the set, creates a series of pleasing interior looks; a slow early-morning fade-up on Sue and Bernie in bed also casts a powerfully melancholic mood. David Toser's costumes are remarkably detailed period creations and canny character statements alike. Toby Algya's sound design makes good use of Miles Davis and other period jazz artists.

Not to be dismissed, Natural Affection is, even in its most lurid moments, the work of a talented playwright struggling to express how stifling conformity and dissatisfaction is eating away at his middle-class characters. It's no surprise that audiences in 1963 weren't interested, and many today will find Natural Affection to be similarly off-putting, if only because the author's despairing view ultimately becomes so airless. But this fine production is often powerful on its own terms, and it adds enormously to our understanding of Inge's star-crossed career. Once again, TACT has done us a favor. --David Barbour