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WPCNR STAGE DOOR. By John F. Bailey, 12th Row Centre. November 20, 2003: Valerie Harper showed White Plains what “being in the theatre” is all about at the White Plains Performing Arts Center Thursday evening. The intimate Little Ingenue On City Place gave about 125 midweek theatre appreciators, young and old, a day with the famous author, Pearl S. Buck at Ms. Buck’s Vermont home shortly before her death.
AWAITING VALERIE HARPER, Pearl Buck’s Study in Vermont just before the first dramatic performance ever at the White Plains Performing Arts Center began. Photo by WPCNR StageCam
This first-ever dramatic production at the WPPAC shows what theatre can be all about. Ms. Harper’s show, All Under Heaven takes you through the emotions and the people of Ms. Buck’s life. The audience meets a Valerie Harper who transforms herself into Pearl Buck’s Southern Belle mother, a Chinese servant, the author Sinclair Lewis, her former husband, Dick Walsh, Senator Joseph McCarthy, and The Dowager Empress (complete with believable “Dragon Lady” accent).
Ms. Harper treats Mr. and Mrs. White Plains to a view of what a real actress is all about, too. The only player — she flawlessly blends a complex and emotional script into changes of scenes and character using a cleverly segued script, using changes of lighting, and realistically mixed sound effects to whisk us around the world in her mind.
She takes us, believably, in this grand illusion from a rural Pennsylvania writer’s study to Nanking under siege, in a literal “flash” of battle; (this scene is perfectly staged, suggesting through sound the panic of a city under siege), from a living room in a school for the retarded (where haunting music says to the audience for Ms. Harper what her voice cannot bear to speak) to the spotlight of a Senate hearing, where Ms. Harper does a chilling “Senator Joseph McCarthy.”
The old format of talking to the audience is pulled off by Ms. Harper effortlessly. While many shows of this nature fail due to talkiness, this one succeeds on the strength of the staging, her delivery and her believability. She becomes the “interesting woman” Pearl Buck was. She treats the audience as her “guests.” Her Pearl Buck is so fascinating, we pull up a chair and decide to stay awhile.
We follow Ms. Buck’s reminisces as she chats with us. Ms. Harper turns Ms. Buck into a combination of a real life Katherine Hepburn/Claudette Colbert character who was not playing a part, but who actually lived her life with principles, courage, creativity, dedication to her talent.
Thanks to Ms. Harper’s onstage memoir, Ms. Buck, perhaps the first intellectual female role model of the 20th Century, is introduced as a role model whose struggles, memories, and strong opinions impressed old and young alike in the audience. Young people I spoke with after Act One, had the look of discovery on their faces, not knowing quite what to make of theatre like this, that makes you think and reaches in and touches you.
The show’s script blends extensive material from an unpublished cultural biography, written by Peter Conn. Ms. Harper discovered this manuscript in galley form at Ms. Buck’s home in Pennsylvania when she followed WPPAC’s Tony Stimac’s suggestion to build a show around Ms. Buck’s life, and traveled out to meet Ms. Buck’s daughter. Ms. Harper has used her original material well.
Ms. Harper convincingly portrays the aging Ms. Buck, whom I must admit reminded me very much of my mother, still carrying on her opinions about things which she will not change in that voice that all we children know our mothers have.
Ms. Harper is living through a typical Pear Buck writer’s day as the play opens, in lighting depicting a Chinese dawn. She is expecting a visa to go back to China in the 70s. She talks to a Canadian Chinese Consulate, upbraids him for a delay, humorously terrorizes her housekeeper, as she acts frustrated over a portion of a book she is writing.
In this portion of the play we get an insight into the writer’s craft, and the loneliness and compelling nature of the creative life. Many indiosyncracies, this writer can tell you are very real. Ms. Harper’s whimsical delivery of the line when she finds an important list in a drawer, mutters, “How many times have I told her not to put things in drawers?” (Real Writers like everything stored on top of their desks.)
As the next lines in her novel do not come to her, she remembers her mother and how her marriage was to a man not suited for her, and that leads to the memory of her mother supervising the arrival of an organ from the states. (Ms. Harper’s “organ-syncing” is very theatrical). That triggers another memory, her old Chinese nanny, whom we immediately meet, and we first see Ms. Harper transform to nail the first emotional wallop of the evening in the nanny’s story of how she was taken in by her mother.
The stories Ms. Buck’s characters tell are not for the faint of heart because they are real and Ms. Harper delivers these powerfully, sometimes amusing, but always “on the money” emotionally.
The most moving part of the play is Ms. Harper’s portrayal of Ms. Buck’s first learning of the affliction of her daughter in a doctor’s office. When this child is revisited again later in Ms. Buck’s life, Ms. Harper’s interaction with her imaginary child will bring tears and love at the same time to any parent’s eyes. Ms. Harper touches the parent in you. These two scenes are worth seeing, my friends, because Ms. Harper and her playwright collobaroter have gotten a parent’s love and feelings towards a damaged child, absolutely, achingly right.
A group of young people from local high schools attended the show, and they saw a portfolio of what being a great actress is all about, too: not being yourself playing a part, but delivering the raw emotional truth in a few measuredly spoken, body language compatible moments. Ms. Harper did this for every character she played throughout the evening.
Act One ends with a tense scene at the siege of Nanking. The blood red defusion of light on the cyclorama used to create this scene is splendidly mixed with the sounds of siege to conjure the winds of war.
The dialogue Ms. Harper delivers depicting Ms. Buck’s waiting with her sister’s children as Mao-Tse-Tung’s soldiers search house-to-house and the actions she contemplates is ripped right out of today’s Baghdad.
In a few short minutes the scene delivers more, says more, and tells more about gut reaction and fear and inspires it in the audience with Ms. Harper’s acting than the first 30 minutes of Private Ryan. As the Act fades out, it is so cleverly abruptly ended, audiences do not know if the play is over or not, it is that effective. You have to see how Ms. Harper is so believable in this sequence, the audience “sees” her sister and the two children in the scene with her.
Act Two, takes Ms. Buck through her Pulitzer Prize winning, her accepting the prize, her testimony in front of Senator McCarthy’s committee, and explores the viciousness of critics, and her efforts to found an adoption agency for Chinese-American orphans in China, an agency still operating today. It also contains the touching scene with her older, ill child I referred to earlier.
All Under Heaven has not been accurately portrayed in previous reviews as to the kind of play it is. This is not a vanity show in any sense. It is a not a comedy, but rather it is a play about the “human comedy.” The way, as this writer recalls the play being described by previous reviewers, is as a showcase for Ms. Harper and for Valerie Harper fans. That is an insult to Ms. Harper’s considerable effort and talent she delivers in this show.
Not just Valerie Harper fans should go to see All Under Heaven. If you love strong drama, the magic illusionability of theatre, the uplift of feeling and acting better after seeing a play, to discover more about ourselves than we did before we entered the theatre, you should see this play. Isn’t that what a “performing arts center” is supposed to do? Admirably, All Under Heaven fulfills Tony Stimac’s words of Gala Night, “theatre is a place where we share emotional truths.” The audience did with Valerie Harper tonight.
For one night, Ms. Harper delivers the truths Pearl Buck, a real life “Lady of Liberty,” fought for and holds them out to the audience like torches lighting up the night, with the torch of her talent.
As Pearl Buck says through her alter ego, Ms. Harper, in act II, about her book All Under Heaven that she is writing in the play, a message is left for those who love theatre in White Plains:
“Yes, the title is incomplete. It doesn’t say “are one.” Not yet. I leave it incomplete because it is the way it is. I am only a solitary source sitting lonely at a desk. I can but give you this book. It is for you to complete the title.” (c)
(c) 2003, All Under Heaven. Used with permission.
FIRST HOT TICKET: You can enjoy the torchlight performance of Ms. Harper Friday and Saturday evenings at 8 PM, and Sunday at 2 PM at the White Plains Performing Arts Center. Tickets may be ordered by telephone at 1-888-977-2250, and picked up at the box office just before the performance. Photo by WPCNR StageCam
AFTER TWO OVATIONS, Ms Harper spoke to White Plains and Stepinac High School students about the theatre, how the play was written, how she prepared for the part, and shared some “inside theatre stuff” about the start of her career, the preparation of All Under Heaven and she acted the age we would all like to be: forever young and enthusiastic about her work, her career, her theatre. She is a star in all that word means, and all the class of the great stars. Photo by WPCNR StageCam.
TAKING QUESTIONS FROM LOCAL INGENUES, a trim, svelte, considerably younger than the character she plays (Pearl Buck) Valerie Harper let local teens in attendance in on secrets of the theatre (hard work, doing everything you can, because you never know when you’ll get seen), and spoke enthusiastically for 45 minutes after doing a 2-hour solo performance. Here she is doing her Tallulah Bankhead role she was doing in a Little Theatre production which landed her her first Broadway acting role. Photo by WPCNR StageCam.
ONE CLASSY LADY: Valerie Harper saying goodnight, as Tony Stimac closes the talkback with the students. Photo by WPCNR StageCam.
This first dramatic production was a very good first serious entertainment to be staged by the WPPAC. The student talkback session with Ms. Harper was a wonderful thing for Ms. Harper to do, and we hope to see more of that in future productions.
The theatre is being hurt by the National Amusements Theatres not opening on schedule. A steady stream of movie goers would easily have meant more opportunity to showcase future WPPAC shows and get the word out to possible patrons.
The National Amusements Theatres insisted on controlling the concessions for the WPPAC, and pocketing 80% of the revenues, but since the 15 movie theatres are not open, there are not concessions being sold yet at WPPAC. Hopefully, National Amusements will set up concessions within the theatre lobby and not force theatre goers to go into the theatre lounges.
The entrance to the White Plains Performing Arts Center leading from the parking garage across the City Place Bridge should have a carpet, and not the concrete slab on the walkway that now exists. It would lead immeasurably to the grandness of the WPPAC. I like that Mr. Stimac and Mr. Rosentock are available to greet and talk with theatre-goers personally. The Theatre still needs many things.
However they need point-of-purchase promotion dearly, right now. They should not be constrained by National Amusements in their ability to promote the theatre’s identity and upcoming attractions in its little space, by this I mean some signs on the street level plugging the evening’s show; some stand up signs in the lower lobbies promoting coming events, and please some signs in Mr. Cappelli’s garage saying “Theatre Parking–5th Level.”
There should be three brightly lighted, tasteful, permanent marquee displays on three sides of the City Center announcing the presence of the theatre at City Center, reading: White Plains Performing Arts Center: Valerie Harper in All Under Heaven Tonight Through Sunday. Dec 6: Louis Armstrong Lives in Ambassador Satch. TIX 1-888-977-2250.” The theatre needs it for walk-in traffic, impulse-buying, and genuine cache. Any restrictions on such signage should be swept aside because the theatre needs it. (Calling Susan Habel).
WPPAC does not have programs with advertising yet, because it is a fledgling operation. Kinkos obviously has been getting a lot of business. The All Under Heaven program contained no local advertising (of restaurants, post theatre specials, or whatever), which should come in time, and it cannot be too soon. Any restauranteur should call the theatre today and offer to print future programs and help the management with this important piece of theatre memorabilia. They do not know everyone in town yet, but I suspect they will soon. The importance of a program in obvious: it sets the scene, you know whether there is an intermission, or not, and many of the audience were confused at the end of Act I, not knowing if the show was over.
In conclusion, the Little Ingenue on City Place performed well in her acting debut. Ms. Harper seemed to be genuinely delighted with audience reaction at the conclusion of her show. The theatre naturally bonds the audience to the action on stage, because of the intimacy of the venue.The theatre creates a focusing environment that rivets attention on the big stage, and the views are just terrific from anywhere in the house. Instead of being on the edge of a big saucer looking at a wee bit of action as in some Broadway house, and certain other performing arts centers in the area, the viewer is on the “edge of the play” fully involved. You forget you are seeing a great show in White Plains.
I took All Under Heaven with me when I left the theatre last night. You will too.
