What I Did Last Summer

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WHAT I DID LAST SUMMER

Photo: Joan Marcus

Cititour.com Review
The autobiographically based plays of the prolific A.R. Gurney can often be staid affairs, with their well-behaved WASPs and early 20th-century settings. So downtown director Jim Simpson (the longtime artistic director of the Flea Theater) deserves kudos for trying to enliven Gurney's little-known coming-of-age piece What I Did Last Summer, now being presented at the Pershing Square Signature Center. The result is often entertaining, and ultimately moving, but some of Simpson's choices do seem at odds with Gurney's material, most notably the constant drumming of Dan Weiner, which is used for unnecessary punctuation.

Moreover, the performances of the two central characters, as good as they are, seem slightly off-kilter. The talented Noah Galvin is almost too over-animated as Charlie, the 14-year-old Buffalo lad stuck in a Canadian country house for the summer with his stressed-out mother Grace (Carolyn McCormick) and priggish older sister Elsie (Kate McGonigle) while his father fights in the final months of World War II. While he's friends with the slightly older Ted (Pico Alexander) and the comely Bonny (the excellent Juliet Brett), Charlie doesn't want to just swim, study Latin, read comic books, or do chores around the house. Furthermore, he lets everyone know his feelings in words rarely heard by boys of his age or that time.

Charlie believes he's found the answer to his existential dilemma in working for Anna Trumbull (Kristine Nielsen), the infamous "Pig Woman," a once wealthy Buffalo resident now living in isolation on a nearby farm. Nielsen, one of our theatrical treasures, turns in one of her trademark, outrageously eccentric interpretations as Anna, who — having been abandoned by high society — now ridicules the mores of the upper class, speaks nonsensical propaganda, and, above all, tries to turn Charlie into some sort of artist. As always, Nielsen can get a gut-wrenching laugh from the audience with just a raised eyebrow or singular line reading, but she can also find the depth in a lost, hurt soul like Anna.

Indeed, we finally find out what truly caused Anna's descent into poverty in a brilliantly written Act Two scene, where we learn that she attempted to try to change Grace's life two decades earlier with unexpectedly dire consequences. This interchange between Nielsen and McCormick, who delivers a truly stunning turn throughout the play as the overwhelmed and slightly befuddled Grace, is kept far more naturalistic than the other scenes, and truly delivers a devastating one-two punch.

As summer fare goes, What I Did Last Summer proves to be intelligent, enlightening, and just a little bit frustrating.
By Brian Scott Lipton


Visit the Site
http://www.signaturetheatre.org/tickets/production.aspx?pid=3776

Cast
Pico Alexander, Juliet Brett, Noah Galvin, Carolyn McCormick, Kate McGonigle, Kristine Nielsen

Open/Close Dates
Opening 4/28/2015
Closing 6/7/2015

Box Office
212-244-7529

Theatre Info
Pershing Square Signature Center
480 West 42nd Street
New York, NY 10036
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