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(If you are thinking of a counterexample right now, you are surely reducing wrong.)
Instead of coming, he has sent along his new girlfriend, Aran (theresthe stranger!
), to meet an assortment of city folk who have come in hopes of seeing the Great Man.
The old wayscarefully undefinedare best, dont you think?
And then Carmen Zilles, playing the mysterious Aran, sings a touching Irish ballad.
The best, most evocative lines of the play happen here, right at the close.
Most of the guests leave, and Ames is lost in reverie.
So who are you?
he says, as Aran nods at him, angelically, from a little glow.
He has spotted her as something Other, a quiet ending to an infuriatingly noisy play.
Many plays have strong beginnings and flub the ending, but Watkins here seems to have worked backwards.
He has a gorgeous image in mind, and he knows who his Stranger should be.
Its the dinner part he hasnt quite worked out yet, nor the tidings that she brings.
Wanting freedom and challenge and change arent just part of a love-fantasy, she writes.
They are our birthright.
Elizabeth Bakers play was the hit of the 1909 season in London.
(Thanks to dramaturg Maya Cantus program note, I know she was 32.)
Deep in our own nasty lizard brains, we recognize century-old markers of wealth and bend towards them.
Comrades, we have so much inward struggle still to do!
Epiphanyis at Lincoln Center Theater through July 24.Chainsis at Theater Row through July 23.
