Same Time, Next Yearby Bernard Slade. Directed by Kyle Fabel.
Reviewed by J. Peter Bergman
"Sometimes I even take the alternate selection."
David Adkins and Corinna May; photo: Abby LePage
A married man and a married woman spend one weekend a year in a guest cottage of a country inn in Northern California. It’s always the same weekend day in February in 1951, 1956, 1961, 1965, 1970 and 1975. The romance of it, though, is that this loving couple are married to other people. "Sometimes," as Doris says to George about her book club membership, "I even take the alternate selection" and that is who each of these people is to the other, the alternate selection.
That they truly do love one another there is no doubt. But it is, to quote the title of Slade’s other Broadway hit, a "Romantic Comedy." They both go through dynamic changes over the twenty-four years of their affair (they have had sex 113 times in the 48 days of their relationship) and by the time the play ends they have endured hippiedom, the age of enlightenment, successful businesses, college and high school, and a whole raft of other oddities of the period this play covers. This play has been, like Doris and George themselves, an enduring hit.
At the Berkshire Theatre Festival’s main stage in Stockbridge, George and Doris are embodied in an almost echoing relationship by David Adkins and Corinna May, husband and wife in real life. Though an ever-invading series of awkward moments intrude on their volatile romance, the honest attraction between these two plays out magnificently in their on-stage engagements. Having seen Ellen Burstyn and Charles Grodin play it on Broadway and a host of others in the interim it is nice to say that some of the neatest aspects of the story are brought to a joyous place in the hands of the current cast of the play.
May’s Doris is crafty. She finds a way to justify every action she takes, every move and every motive she can create for herself. Doris is seemingly unstoppable. Her passions burn more brightly than George’s do and her very Catholic religious history never gets in the way of her progress through life. Clearly she wants to be with the man she loves in spite of any obstacle or excuse he can pull out of his agnostic hat. May gives the woman certainty which is just the right choice. Even when indecision rules the day for Doris May pulls her character up by her boot strings and gets her moving again. She makes it easy to understand why George is so smitten with her; she is obviously smitten with him. May’s body melts into his or is thrust at him in seductive ways. Her lips may not smile but her face does whenever she sees him.
Adkins is the perfect foil for the duel this duet fights on a yearly basis. George is so in love with his moderately moveable mistress that every parry meets a return that keeps him intensely engaged. George, in his hands, seems to always tremble when she is in the room even when he harbors major secrets, or is showing himself to be a nearly drunken coward in the greater battle of life. Adkins does things with his hair that help him age through the period of the play. He brings his character through the vicissitudes of life with a certain middle-class flare. The actor knows how to make character live on stage and in person. Both of them make each season in their brief twenty-four year affair into something recognizable without being forced.
Director Kyle Fabel has used the vast hotel cottage set perfectly, even finding a way to make the scene changes into something precious as the hotel maids parade, and posture and dance their way into a much-earned curtain-call bow. He has allowed his actors the privileges of unrestricted movement, touches of semi-nudity, bodily contact that is more intimate than in many other productions I’ve seen. He has built the images of these mis-matched sensual monkeys who cannot resist their urges when in each other’s presence. The married couple and the director with a risk-sense have wrought an amazing presentation.
The set, as mentioned, is a vast expanse of cottage. Designer Randall Parsons has given his company one of the most immense playing spaces this particular stage has ever seen and then crowded it with furniture, piano, window seats, railings, mission furniture and obstacles, all designed to look and feel right here, but also to bring the actors into constant close proximity. When they are not near one another, the furniture always seems to be more a series of bridges than a collection of obstacles. The set also has as many costume changes as the actors.
Costumes delineating each period in this relationship have been designed by Charles Schoonmaker who brings the right feel to each scene. Paul Hackenmueller has done a nice job with the lighting and J Hagenbuckle’s sound design work makes the bridges between the years work well. It is surprising to see a casting director listed among the credits here when this couple of actors - the only actors on stage, really - are married, live in the region and have worked together before at this theater (his nineteenth season here) under the direction of this director. I hope Alan Filderman wasn’t paid vast sums for his national search for this show. That would be a budget item worth a second look.
I wish the program for this show had given us just a bit of information about the play, say the years in which each scene takes place. That would be a handsome gift to an audience that was not familiar with the storyline or the costume indicators. As we strive to find new, younger audiences for theater, anything that can be done to help them "get it" would be appreciated.
"Same Time, Next Year" is a kind of American classic comedy now. It is an iconic play about adult matters that uses humor and pathos to present a less common practice, the extra-marital affair, in a way that is almost wholesome and part of the accepted American practice of marriage. With this cast, in this production, it is a splendid way to spend an evening out. I cannot do better than to suggest it for the fun and insight it provides.
Corinna May and David Adkins; photo: Abby LePage
Same Time, Next Year plays at the Berkshire Theatre Group’s Berkshire Theatre Festival main stage on Routes 7 and 102 in Stockbridge, Massachusetts through August 10. For information and tickets, call the box office at 413-997-4444 or go on line at www.BerkshireTheatreGroup.org.