The organizers of the American Repertory Theatre are worthy of admiration for their willingness to support modern and experimental projects in theater. However, with ART's production of "Olly's Prison," the Theatre took their enterprising spirit for original or daring pieces to an unfortunate new level. By the time intermission rolled around, a third of the audience had left the show, and the remaining members greeted the cast's final bows with hard expressions and perfunctory applause.
Playwright Edward Bond's work is not commonly performed in the U.S., nor in his home country of England, for that matter. His often politically-charged and violence-ridden plays have the clear aim of shocking people into action in an attempt to achieve some form of social justice. However, the end result in this production is a sense of confusion.
The opening monologue is one of the stronger scenes in the play largely due to the impressive skills of leading actor Bill Camp, who has appeared in an array of roles at the ART, on Broadway, and in film and television.
Camp captures the slow deterioration of Mike, a working-class, widowed father, as he attempts to make his daughter Sheila appreciates the comfortable home that he believes he provides for her. Sheila, played by Zofia Goszczynska, sits stubbornly and silently at a table, refusing to acknowledge Mike's presence. It becomes clear that the apartment, for both Sheila and Mike, resembles a kind of prison.
As the scene progresses, Mike's anger and confusion cause him to commit an act of aggression toward his daughter that lands him in a literal prison. From here, the play begins a downward slope - or more of a slow drift - towards a disappointing end. A series of secondary characters, none of whom make any lasting impressions, weave in and out of the storyline. The much built-up scene of violence near the play's end, which brings the underlying themes of society's excessive violence and corruption to a head, is not only between two of the more uninteresting characters, but it also drags on and on.
During Mike's time in jail, he interacts with two inmates: Barry (Thomas Derrah), an old man who will do anything for a smoke, and Smiler (Peter Richards), an upbeat young man who ends up committing suicide a few days before he is to be released.
Set design and production provide the stage with a dark, drab tone which succeeds in bringing some of the stronger scenes to life. The interior of the apartment is quite natural and not overly elaborate, with suggestive bars of light entering through a window and the sound of traffic in the distance. Inside the prison, the same film noir sort of lighting, combined with prison gates and cigarette smoke, is perhaps overly interactive, as the audience at times feels just as trapped as Mike himself.
Occasional moments of comic relief are provided by Angela Reed, who plays Mike's desperate and pathetic lover, Vera. When Mike tells her that he is in prison for life, Vera responds: "That's only their way of putting it," and continues to remain faithful to Mike, who doesn't show any genuine feelings for her.
Reed's performance is convincing and interesting, but she is given less stage time than the mediocre actors, including David Wilson Barnes as Frank, a policeman and former boyfriend of Sophia, and Micket Solis as Olly, who is introduced in the last third of the play.
"Olly's Prison," was written by Bond as a teleplay for the BBC in 1993. ART's production is the play's American premiere, and Edward Bond made the conscious decision to leave the play unaltered for American audiences. Though the play starts off strong, it soon collapses under the weight of the playwright's lofty and unrealized aims, and the mediocre secondary characters do nothing to enliven the dreary imbroglio that is "Olly's Prison."
