MISSING STORY

After a very nice dinner at Blue Fin (one of our theatre district favorites), we headed over to the Samuel J Friedman Theatre, anxious to see Linda Lavin, also a favorite, in Donald Margulies’ COLLECTED STORIES. Although we were very disappointed with our seats, Cathy didn’t hesitate to ask for the theatre manager to see if we could be moved and we ended up in the second row of this very comfortable theatre.

Donald Marguiles’ COLLECTED STORIES seemed to be missing a story! In other words . . . we really liked this play, but we wanted to love it and just couldn’t. Linda Lavin plays Ruth Steiner, a never married writer and professor, who allows student Lisa Morrison, played by Sarah Paulson, to become her assistant and protégé, although this was clearly not Ruth’s original intent. Both Lavin and Paulson are very well cast and their performances are strong and sure. We thought it took Lavin a little too long to get up to the appropriate energy level but she does eventually get there.

The costumes and set were the perfect backdrops and it was quite believable that author Ruth Steiner had lived in that apartment for over 30 years.

What wasn’t believable was Steiner’s shock at her protégé “taking” her story/life and turning it into a novel! On many levels this is the literary version of ALL ABOUT EVE as we find in the second act that Lisa has hijacked Ruth’s life story and turned it into a novel, her first. Why such shock when Ruth tells Lisa her deepest story and it becomes Lisa’s novel?

All Ruth would have had to do was tell Lisa that she wanted to share her story with her but that it was permanently off limits in terms of re-telling. Then again, I guess there would have been no show. And we would have missed that.

A two person show is always a challenge with many opportunities for lagging and boredom. COLLECTED STORIES really succeeds in engaging the audience. We just felt a tiny bit cheated at the end. Not by Lavin or Paulson but by author Marguiles. This was clearly reminiscent of our feeling after Marguiles’ TIME STOOD STILL. That too was an almost great story.

NEXT UP: PROMISES, PROMISES