Theatre in Review: The Correspondent (Rattlestick Playwrights Theater)

	Thomas Jay Ryan. Photo: Joan Marcus

As its name suggests, Rattlestick is a company devoted to writers, and it performs a valuable service, showcasing the works of new and emerging playwrights. Almost necessarily, its track record has been uneven -- that's the nature of the game -- and, in my experience, it has never produced a play that made no sense. Until now, that is.

In fact, The Correspondent all but dares the audience to believe in its flagrantly implausible narrative. Philip Graves, a middle-aged widower, is desperate to get in touch with his late wife -- so desperate that he contacts an Internet-based service that promises to link up people like him with fatally ill "correspondents." As the play begins, he meets with Mirabel, a young black woman who is apparently dying of cancer; the idea is that, as soon as she passes into the next world, she will make contact with Philip's wife. Philip feels guilty because he hit her the night before she died and wants to express his regrets.

Philip is a senior partner in an important Boston law firm, a job description that is apparently not incompatible with being a credulous fool when it comes to the afterlife. He is also a practicing Catholic, a religion that looks down on any suggestion of spiritualism. But I suppose we are meant to believe that grief has driven him around the bend. Given the fact that he likes to wear the blood-stained blouse his wife wore at the time of her death -- she was hit by a car -- it's pretty clear he's in a bad way. Still, it's a big leap to believe that he would uncritically turn himself over to a bunch of anonymous online mediums.

Nevertheless, Philip gives Mirabel his instructions along with a hefty piece of cash, and that should be that -- except it isn't. Breaking all the rules, he summons her back to his apartment, with the news that he has received a letter from his wife. He is full of gratitude, but Mirabel, clearly upset by their encounter, not only refuses credit, she admits that the entire service is a scam designed to prey on souls devastated by grief. (Among other things, she is in the rudest of health.) Instead of calling the cops, Philip goes to bed with Mirabel -- and, the next morning, announces he wants her to move in. She does so, warily but happily, and, for a minute or two, it looks like they will successfully make a life together. However, the letters from Philip's wife keep coming. Eventually, it is revealed that they are being delivered by a slender, handsome young man who, when caught, says he is Philip's wife. Disconcertingly, he has access to some rather intimate details of their marriage.

I can hear the cries of "spoiler alert!" from here, but believe me, there's plenty more before The Correspondent is over, and it's impossible to discuss where it goes wrong without digging down into the details of its bizarre plot and shaky construction. The idea that someone as sophisticated as Philip would fall for such an obvious scam is laughable -- would anyone fall for this? How long could such a service advertise on the Internet before the police showed up? -- but the playwright, Ken Urban, compounds the crime by having Philip, who can barely leave his apartment, suddenly throw over his grief and chase after Mirabel seemingly without a second thought. And when the young man (thoughtfully named Young Man) shows up, Philip makes decisions that are even more reckless and hard to credit. Apparently, he will believe anyone who pretends to be an emissary from the spirit world.

This rickety plotting might not matter so much if The Correspondent had a solid psychological substructure, but there isn't a believable character in sight. Philip is little more than a pawn to be moved around the stage, a fall guy for various schemes. (It would help if he ever went to work, but he is apparently too busy nursing his delusions.) Even with Thomas Jay Ryan, one of the best character men in New York, playing him, he remains a puzzler. Ryan is excellent at conveying the way that grief has hollowed out Philip, but he struggles to make anything coherent of his behavior. As Mirabel, Heather Alicia Simms works hard to build a character out of remarkably meager material, but what can you do with lines ("So your wife's a man now?") that all but beg (and get) unintentional laughs? In a way, the most successful performance is delivered by Jordan Geiger, who, as Young Man, is tasked with playing an enigma. Then again, it's not easy running around the stage in nothing but briefs and a lady's T-shirt, pouting, "You treat me like a son, not your wife."

The action is punctuated by many confrontations, tearful interludes, the most explicit sex scene on a New York stage not in a Thomas Bradshaw play, and a did-I-hear-that-correctly finale that leaves one with the strong suspicion that Urban has been pulling our collective chain all night long. The director, Stephen Brackett, does his best to bring a feeling of believability to those morose and melodramatic proceedings, but he only succeeds in establishing an air of pervasive gloom.

Andrew Boyce's apartment setting is reasonably attractive, if a little cramped, largely because the ground plan demands that we see the hallway outside the living room, and there is only so much room on Rattlestick's smallish stage. The lighting designer, Eric Southern, creates a number of chiaroscuro looks that convincingly create the illusion that the apartment is lit only by the practical units on stage, but after a while, I began to yearn for some sunlight. Jessica Pabst's costumes and Daniel Kluger's sound design are both solid achievements.

But there's no getting around the fact that Urban has taken materials that might not pass muster in a commercial thriller and has weighed them down with enough depression for an Ingmar Bergman triple feature -- with results that are both unconvincing and off-putting. Earlier in the season, Urban gave us The Awake, a much more interesting piece that also made use of fantasy elements, and I've heard good things about another of his plays, The Happy Sad. Under the circumstances, it's easy to wonder if Rattlestick has done him a favor by producing The Correspondent; it might have benefitted from a few more runs through the playwright's laptop. --David Barbour