"The Country Girl" is over-the-top theater. There are three great roles for actors who are willing to let it all hang out and able to retain control. It's high drama, even melodrama at times, but the Clifford Odets play gets an almost-terrific production from the Avalon Theatre Company, it should shed the "almost" by the time it concludes its run on May 2 at the Art Space in Crestwood Court (once Crestwood Plaza).
The tale of an over-the-hill actor, dragged behind the wagon for many years before he was able to pull himself onto it, is powerful, almost electric in its tension. John Contini is wonderful as Frank Elgin, alcoholic and actor, trying to make a comeback. He becomes the trophy in a fierce battle between his wife, Georgie (Erin Kelley), and Bernie Dodd (GP Hunsaker), the play's young genius of a director. Their animosity, along with Georgie's passive-aggressive manipulation of her husband, and Dodd's ambition under the pressure of a great professional gamble, are what makes the action blaze.
Dodd is willing to challenge the producer (a delightful Whit Reichert) to cast Elgin
before he discovers what an empty shell the man has become. But Odets was looking for a young directorial genius, rather like the Orson Welles of the Mercury Theater, and Hunsaker looks too old and is often too mild-mannered. Kelley is riveting as Georgie, who regards her husband as both life preserver and punching bag, but too many of her lines were lost because she swallowed some and failed to project on others. Her lesser volume was a good contrast with her husband and her enemy, but the concept didn't always work. The good news is that these problems are fixable.
In lesser roles, Austin Pierce was a charmer as the stage manager, and Casey Boland was a properly harried young playwright. Jim Anthony directed stylishly, and Larry Mabrey's set worked in the small space. The music, though sometimes written after the play was written in the late 1940s, was right for the mood and the action.
A nod to Avalon for providing a program that kept everyone on the same page in terms of time and place, and it was interesting to me to note that Odets, who wrote a lot of successful plays for nearly 20 years, found the proper English word to express each emotion and describe each action. It's strong stuff, with great power, real emotion and dialogue that snaps, crackles and pops like a bowl of Rice Krispies.
A production of the Avalon Theatre Company, at the ArtSpace of Crestwood Court, through May 2.
-Joe