A Pulitzer Prize winner is in our midst as "A Delicate Balance" opens tonight in Balch Arena Theater. Playwright Edward Albee, better known for penning the American classic "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?," won a Pulitzer for 1966's "A Delicate Balance."
The show, Pen, Paint, and Pretzels' fall major, is a dialogue-driven family drama whose three acts take place entirely in the living room of patriarch Tobias (graduate student Armen Nercessian) and matriarch Agnes (junior Caitlin Johnson). Joining the couple, whose family life, relationship, and emotions teeter in the delicate balance to which the play's title refers, are Agnes's outspoken, alcoholic sister Claire (junior Lizzy Oxler) and their daughter Julia (senior Laura Semine), who at the outset of the play cyclically returns home after her fourth failed marriage.
The group's instability exists quietly and without any major complications until close family friends Harry (sophomore Michael Taub) and Edna (senior Betsy Goldman) seek refuge in the already-overflowing home of Tobias and Agnes. The strange, though innocuous, presence of Harry and Edna, who in their own residence have been overwhelmed by an inexplicable terror, sets the play into action.
The collection of anxious and emotional houseguests creates an uneasiness and tension in the fragile home and leads to outbursts, breakdowns, and reevaluations.
"Thematically, Harry and Edna coming is a catalyst event for the family, specifically Agnes and Tobias, to explore their own personal relationships," said director and graduate student Natka Bianchini.
The play's focus on familial and friendly interaction is meant to demonstrate "what time does to relationships and how things are allowed to atrophy over time," said Bianchini. "It explores the idea that as time passes you allow your personal relationships to deteriorate."
Actress Laura Semine, who portrays four-time divorce Julia, echoes this idea. "The play works with the idea that when you actually realize how important relationships are and when you finally realize what they've become, it can be jarring," she said. "The breaking point is when people realize that things aren't going to fix themselves."
Bianchini chose the piece because she saw it as a "show in which actors could work on and explore very multifaceted characters. It's a great show for actors to work on," she said, "and it's a show that I thought would work really well staged in a full arena."
Indeed, the show's intense character portrayals and its creative set design outwardly demonstrate the production's focus on balance. Set designer Alex Sherman [Sherman is a columnist with the Daily], a senior, used ropes to create the illusion of a suspended living room, thus creating on the stage a perpetual apprehension at the possibility of a sudden (though admittedly structurally impossible) scene alteration.
The suspension ropes are juxtaposed with an otherwise typical living room, complete with coffee table, sofa, and a mini-bar, into whose contents the play's characters often retreat. The audience "feels the space is familiar," said senior Laura Semine, "but at the same time you don't feel at home." The space externally resembles a typical living room, but function does not follow form and it never serves as a place where the characters can relax.
Despite the play's somber tone, Semine said the production was still "a lot of fun."
"The chemistry outside the play makes it easier to throw ourselves into the piece, because we use the same energy," she said.
In their rehearsals, each of the actors "tried to pull out as much about our character as we could," said Semine. "It was easy for all of us to find something in our character that reflects ourselves, which also helped the chemistry of the cast."
For college students, the idea of delicate balance may more immediately evoke the juggling of ten-page papers, six packs, one-night stands, and 8:30 classes, but the play's universal discussion of family and relationships will not be lost on tonight's audience.
