Joan Didion's husband dropped dead at their dinner table. C. S. Lewis' wife died in a hospital after a three-year battle with cancer. Two stage versions of those tragedies have opened in the last fortnight, with "Shadowlands," the William Nicholson drama about the late-life romance between Lewis and American poet Joy Davidman Gresham, took the stage last night as a Mustard Seed Theatre production at Fontbonne University.
"Shadowlands," a powerful, brilliantly-acted tale,will run through Feb. 13. The plays are opposite in their approach. Didion talks about her life after his death. Nicholson follows Lewis as the confirmed bachelor befriends Gresham, protects her, marries her, learns to love her — in that order.
Gary Wayne Barker, one of our city's finest actors, delivers as Lewis with power and polish. A cranky Christian, an Oxford don and a successful author, he lives with his brother, Warnie, a retired Army officer. The couple could have been the models for Henry Higgins and Colonel Pickering in George Bernard Shaw's "Pygmalion," and its much later musical version, "My Fair Lady." Richard Lewis is spot-on as Warnie and the two men interact perfectly with one another.
Kelley Ryan is excellent as Gresham, who has exactly the right tone in every conversation with Lewis and his friends, especially Christopher Riley, played as a perfectly pompous oaf by B. Weller. Gresham began a correspondence with Lewis, partly out of admiration, partly as something to add some brightness, even a few fantasies, to a life hobbled by an unhappy marriage. When she writes Lewis and mentions she will be coming to England, the consternation of the Lewises is palpable. Barker is like an 11-year-old boy dealing with the fact that his pretty math teacher, on whom he has a massive crush, is joining the family for Thanksgiving dinner. Lewis' facial expressions speak volumes.
When she shows up with her son, Douglas (Jackson Mabrey), Barker and Lewis are as nervous as a critic writing about an actor named Lewis playing a character named Lewis who is the brother of another character named Lewis, played by an actor named Barker, and doing it so readers know what is going on.
Mabrey shows the attitude and movements of the young boy in ideal style, but must project more. He was very difficult to hear.
Weller, Michael Brightman,Terry Meddows and Charlie Barron stand out as four friends of Lewis who act as sort of a Greek chorus of straight men. Brightman has the perfect body language, as he has shown in other productions, and Meddows was excellent as a smirking, smarmy, sneaky, snide, supercilious priest who also is hypocritical about his religion and about God.
This, of course, is at the core of C. S. Lewis' writing and his own approach to religion. As uptight as a caricature of an Oxford professor, and a very devout man, he questions God, even curses him, about why a supposedly kind God could let bad things happen to good people. The conundrum has been posed for centuries, and is no closer to being answered today than it ever has been.
Deanna Jent's direction is quiet, well-paced and with sensitivity to the difficult questions that are at the heart of the play. She uses the humor of the playwright to break the tension at the right times and the wardrobe (the first of Lewis' seven books in The Chronicles of Narnia is called "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe") upstage right stands as a looming presence of the author and also where Douglas Gresham finds peace. Courtney Sanazaro's set, Jane Sullivan's costumes and Michael Sullivan's lights are terrific.
Shadowlands, by William Nicholson, a production of the Mustard Seed Theatre, will be at the Fontbonne Theatre through Feb. 13
—Joe
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Well done! I especially like the “Who’s on First” part about all the Lewises. 🙂