If its writer is brilliant enough, even a play in which nothing happens can be stunning. My favorite example is Bernard Shaw’s Don Juan In Hell, in which no real change occurs, no pivotal decisions are made, and still we’re riveted to every word. What Don Juan and the Devil, Doña Ana and The Statue have to offer us in that play is insight — deep, provocative, important discoveries about heaven and hell, hedonism and struggle, art and life. Watching Don Juan — which usually plays on its own, unaccompanied by the longer comedy of which it was originally a part — we feel stimulated by the effervescent language, and compelled to choose between the way of effortful evolution and enjoy-it-now pleasure. It’s as if we wandered into a late-night bull session featuring Einstein, Picasso and Bertrand Russell. The experience is wonderful.
Terrence McNally, an American playwright whose best plays are Master Class and Love! Valour! Compassion!, has also written a drama in which nothing happens — and it’s not going to give Shaw a run for his money. Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune is about an evening spent together by a waitress and a short-order cook, and though the dialogue is at all times credible (and never cliché), the drama offers next to no insights deeper than “Starting a relationship is hard” and “Once burned is twice shy.”
Watching Frankie and Johnny love, argue and love again, we wait in vain for any interesting ideas about sex, romance, urban life, food or dreams deferred (Frankie wanted to be an actress). This is slice-of-life drama, in which we could very well be spying on two real people on the night of their first tryst. The problem is, most real people don’t have much to offer in the way of entertainment. After two acts of Frankie and Johnny we can’t help but be impressed — it’s no small feat to render reality so convincingly — even while we’re slightly bored.
Yes, McNally is an expert painter of modern life; but wouldn’t it be nice if he had something to say?
I’ve seen four versions of the play, including this one, and only the third — the Jobsite production of 2005, featuring Paul Potenza and Ami Sallee Corley — found a way around the problems in the script. What the director and actors did in that fine presentation was create a challenge for Frankie and a project for Johnny that weren’t necessarily within McNally’s vision, but which gave the play significance nonetheless. Corley’s Frankie wasn’t just ambivalent about relationships, she was a deeply wounded victim who had given up on finding any but the smallest, most fugitive joys in her hard life. And Johnny wasn’t just a talkative good guy — he was a desperate believer that even for people like Frankie and himself there remained a little beauty, if only one knew how to grab it. Spending two full acts watching the scarred but hopeful Johnny try to get through to damaged Frankie, we knew what was at stake and we cared. Deeply.
That’s not the case with the current American Stage version, which seems closer, ironically enough, to McNally’s intention, and therefore not so very interesting. As directed by Bari Newport, Tom Nowicki’s Johnny is a celebrator of life, an enthusiast and booster, who probably can get excited about putting an extra slice of tomato on a hamburger. This is excellent acting — but merely likable rather than emotionally affecting. As Frankie, Tonia M. Jackson brings us a sensibly skeptical Everywoman, suspicious of any man who claims to love her after one roll in the hay, but game enough to get back in the hay after the inevitable verbal dustup. This too is superb acting — but without any notable implications.
The action takes place in Tom Hansen’s vividly rendered New York apartment, with the kitchenette just a few feet from the fold-out bed, and all the accessories necessary for some cooking on stage. Frankie and Johnny’s underclothes are perfectly designed by Adrin Erra Puente, and the impeccable lighting is by Joseph P. Oshry. So don’t misunderstand me: this production is utterly professional. It just means next to nothing.
I suppose I’ll be seeing more Frankies and Johnnys in years to come — a two-character play with only one set and a famous author is just too attractive to miss for cash-strapped producers everywhere. But to the next director, a warning: the great realists, from Ibsen to Williams, are always more than realistic. This play needs a point — and it’s yours to find.
This article appears in Jun 9-15, 2011.