from
Albany Times Union ...
'Visiting Mr. Green' opens doors of emotion On the face of
it, Jeff Baron's semiautobiographical "Visiting
Mr. Green" looks like an eccentric feel-good
comedy. Twenty-something Ross Gardiner is
forced by the court to pay weekly community
service visits to the 86-year-old man he nearly
ran down at a local intersection -- "You
walked into traffic!" Gardiner fairly
shouts at their first awkward meeting.
But "Visiting Mr. Green" runs considerably
deeper.
And the current Curtain Call Theatre production
of the two-hander finds much of the pathos,
as well as the humor, in Baron's script.
There are revelations throughout "Visiting
Mr. Green," some minor, some major. There
are also moments of genuine poignancy amid
the anger, confusion and desperation.
Gardiner is at heart a good soul. At first
he is as annoyed by having to spend time with
Green as Green is at having to put up with
the visits. But he finds his way into the
cranky old man's world, and quickly develops
a real sense of caring.
That sense is nearly shattered by Green's
reaction to one of his own revelations --
I'm sorry, but you'll have to see the play
-- and rescued by his own response to the
ghosts that haunt Green's past.
The talented Jonathan Whitton plays Gardiner.
He's gangly, skinny and twitchy, and all that
nervous energy feeds right into the hip, urbane
marathon-runner-in-training.
Whitton can act. He could be accused of being
a bit stagy, but so what when it all works?
There is never a moment that he isn't engaged
in the character: The only time you'll realize
he was the same actor who played the emcee
in Home Made Theater's "Cabaret"
is when you read about it in the program.
Onstage at CCT, he's all Ross.
Paul Richer plays Green, and it's a satisfying,
mostly naturalistic performance. I last saw
Richer in a ham-fisted, wretchedly histrionic
"King Lear" at Schenectady Civic
Players -- the kind of show that lingers in
the memory as a barometer of badness.
This is a different Richer, one who has found
a true route to playing an old man at the
end of his tether.
Together, Whitton and Richer present a believable,
sometimes touching story that's peppered with
instances of real drama, made from the simple
stuff of glances, gestures and human contact.
Director Marna Lawrence deserves praise simply
for her invisibility. You won't think about
her, either, unless you're reading the program
-- and what better could be said about a director?
"Visiting Mr. Green," which premiered
with Eli Wallach in the title role at Berkshire
Theatre Festival in 1996, is a deceptively
rich play about the consequences of living.
