Take it from someone who just got home from a night at the theater, and whose review (this one) is due first thing tomorrow morning: When you write as time-consumingly as I do, or when you’d much rather “sleep on it” than think off the top of your head, staying up all night isn’t a lot of fun.
Or ask Julia Fracassi, the desperate heroine of “A Sleeping Country.” With one failed marriage behind her and another promising one on the horizon, she’s beset by a chronic case of insomnia. In a funny prerecorded prelude, she’s counting sheep: “15,002, 15,003…” And in light of the quirky opening scenes between Julia and her friend/therapist, Dr. Midge, the initial tone of the piece is comedic.
As surely as Julia’s insomnia proves to be symptomatic of other spiritual and emotional issues, “A Sleeping Country” (by Melanie Marnich) eventually turns more serious. For the most part, these scenes play fairly well, too, but something about the mixture doesn’t satisfy. Earlier, Julia and Midge are wisecracking about sex and drugs. Later, they’re contemplating assisted suicide and dealing in illegal prescriptions.
Thankfully, in the casting of his modest Essential Theatre production -- one of three shows in the company’s 13th annual summer repertory (“Great Falls” opened this week, and Atlanta playwright Theroun Patterson’s “A Thousand Circlets” opens next week) -- artistic director Peter Hardy finds his own balance of sorts. Megan Hayes, for instance, comes on so amusingly as the self-obsessed medical provider that it keeps a potentially repellent character tolerable.
Kelly Criss has another stabilizing effect as Julia. Best known for comedy, her lighter moments don’t give the actress anything new to do, and she seems a tad perky and looks rather rested for someone who’s so woefully sleep-deprived. But it eases some of the burden in the play’s heavier and more obvious scenes just watching Criss test herself in a different way.
Rounding out the ensemble, Holly Stevenson and Matthew Myers are no less resourceful. She’s Isabella Orsini, an eccentric and similarly afflicted Italian countess who offers Julia better counsel than she’s accustomed to getting from Dr. Midge: “You’d rather have the disease than face the cure,” she accurately observes about Julia at one point. And the quick-changing Myers portrays all of the male roles, including Julia’s flustered fiance back in New York and a couple of more colorful men she meets during her sojourn in Italy.
Working on a low budget, Hardy uses slide projections of the Manhattan skyline and Venetian waterways to establish the play’s alternate settings -- to problematic effect. The images appear to be out of alignment, sort of like looking at a 3D movie screen without the special glasses. You expect the slides to come into sharper focus as Julia pulls herself together, but no. (His nicest stylistic touch is a bit of magical realism involving a starry night sky.)
In the end, “A Sleeping Country” doesn’t add up to much, but the sum of its various parts compensates for the lack of a very cohesive whole.
Theater review
“A Sleeping Country”
Grade: B-
Through July 31 (in rotating repertory with “Great Falls” and “A Thousand Circlets”). $18-$23. Actor’s Express, 887 W. Marietta St., Atlanta (King Plow Arts Center). 866-811-4111. essentialtheatre.com.
Bottom line: Better in parts than on the whole.
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