Collected Stories

Rare stage moments lift 2-actor drama
By: Anne Marie Welsh

Toward the end of the subtly calibrated production of Donald Margulies' insightful "Collected Stories" at North Coast Repertory Theatre, the flinty, fiercely independent writer Ruth Steiner ages swiftly as she releases her rage. Furious that her favorite student has appropriated a piece of her private life in her novel, Ruth's unaccustomed outbursts become so pained and passionate that she seems to be crying out against her own encroaching death.

Ten years after originating the rich role of Ruth at South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa, Kandis Chappell brings new dimension and, toward the end, quiet desperation to her portrayal of this complex, crusty, thoroughly likable woman. A special stage alchemy mixing the intimacy of the North Coast space, Chappell's greater maturity, actor Amanda Sitton's dewy lyricism and David Ellenstein's nearly invisible direction have spun pure gold from Margulies' modest, two-actor drama.

The play's final image - of Chappell's Ruth alone in her book-filled apartment, hearing but not answering, a ringing telephone - here proves devastating. These are the moments that make the lure of theater irresistible; if you care about the art of acting, you'll want to experience this beautifully realized production.

Chappell's deceptively natural ease at inhabiting character is legend in Southern California. Thanks to Margulies' meticulous craft and pinpoint poetic language, she gets to play a big range of notes in "Collective Stories." In the abrasive comedy of the opening scene, she meets her vaguely flighty writing student Lisa Morrison. Even the lines on Ruth's face seem to soften as Chappell reveals the slow, steady melting away of self-defensive irony in the character, for Ruth comes to love the girl and struggle like a mother with Lisa's talent and her burgeoning independence. And finally, there's disappointment and that outrage at what she considers the girl's artistic and moral trespass.

In previous stagings of this much-produced play, I have sided with Ruth in the battle royal that emerges in Act 2; at North Coast Rep, thanks to Sitton's softened Lisa, I wasn't quite so sure.

Here's the setup and the central question. Ruth, a straight-shooting teacher, rarely reveals much about her personal life to Lisa or, apparently, to anyone. But she does open herself to this talented student, because she's embarrassed by her own small-minded, competitive reaction to the girl's early - and independent - success. She wants to make nice, so she tells Lisa of her own long-ago attempts to please a mentor and lover she admired, poet Delmore Schwartz.

At the midpoint of Act 2, set two years later, we see a blossoming, more self-assured Lisa giving a reading from her just-published novel. Afterward, worried about her mentor and quietly disappointed that the older woman didn't attend the reading, Lisa arrives at Ruth's apartment.

There, a weakened Ruth, in an escalating orgy of recriminations, accuses her former student of theft. "He's mine, not yours," she says of Schwartz and the anecdote that became the seed of Lisa's novel. Like his "Sight Unseen," produced at North Coast Rep with Ellenstein playing the morally troubled painter Jonathan Waxman, "Collected Stories" engages key questions about artistic ethics. Who owns a story? Who can tell it most truthfully? Whose feelings matter?

Sitton, a striking if unseasoned actor, creates a sincere Lisa, believable in both her insecurities and also her later certainty that she has done nothing wrong, nothing more than what Ruth taught her to do. When she leaves the stage, however, and Chappell's Ruth stands forlornly looking toward the audience before turning away one last time, such questions dissolve.

Margulies and the NCRT company have provided no answers. Instead - and this is rare in American theater - they've made us care as deeply about two smart, passionate, fully alive women as they care about each other.

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'Collected Stories' gets stellar telling at North Coast Rep
By: Patricia Morris Buckley

I must start with a disclaimer: It would be difficult for a journalist not to enjoy the text of "Collected Stories," playwright Donald Margulies' tale of two writers talking about the creative process, dropping names of famous authors and displaying their passion for the written word.

However, the play contains a far more universal theme that will appeal to writers and non-writers alike: the importance and influence of teachers, mentors and friends as well as the responsibilities on both sides of the relationship. And, in the end, it's also about irrevocably crossing an emotional line and the painful consequences that ensue.

Each of these themes is fully fleshed out in North Coast Repertory's flawless production. The staging is simple and tone perfect, while the two actors are nothing short of brilliant. The Pulitzer Prize-winning Margulies demonstrates a lyrical use of language as well as creating intriguingly complex characters.

"Collected Stories" begins with the successful and acerbic writer Ruth Steiner teaching a graduate tutorial to the very nervous and intimidated Lisa Morrison. The play spans six years during which their relationship shifts to a mentorship and then to friendship. Eventually, their character flaws lead to a heartbreaking, unbridgeable end to their intimacy.

Margulies isn't one of those writers who spells out every plot point. He allows the audience time to linger with the characters and to find the subtle changes by themselves. Set in the Big Apple, the play's humor has a very New York flavor with its dry wit and depiction of highbrow intelligentsia.

Kandis Chappell embodies the role of Ruth with a powerful, contained energy while also adding whisper-thin layers of loneliness, vulnerability and regret. She played this part at South Coast Repertory and the Old Globe, and this performance feels like a wine aged to perfection. Not once does she seems to be acting, so based in truth is her performance.

We expect great performances from an actor of Chappell's caliber, which makes Amanda Sitton's portrayal of Lisa Morrison all the more surprising. Although sometimes a little too aware of herself acting (which actually works for the character), Sitton creates an evolution of physicality from the nervous, flighty mannerisms of the first scene transforming into a loungy comfort before the intermission, then to a mature, Audrey Hepburn-like regality in the final scene. Her coltlike body coupled with an unbridled need for success make her thoroughly believable as a graduate student desperately seeking to be personally and creatively validated.

Director David Ellenstein once again shows his deft touch by allowing the characters time to percolate, even to the point of two to three minutes of complete silence. He also brightens the play's humor (there are many chuckles from these witty characters), while allowing the deeper theme to thoroughly permeate our emotions.

Jeanne Reith's costumes are so pitch perfect they don't feel like costumes at all. Marty Burnett once again designs a compact, believable set. If there's one quibble with the show, it would be the long set-changing breaks between scenes.

"Collected Stories" is a funny, emotionally compelling play that is given a brilliant production at North Coast Rep. It and these wonderfully crafted characters will resonate in your mind long after the lights have gone to black.

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