Tout comprendre, c'est tout pardonner says the proverb: To understand all is to forgive all.
But is it true?
If we understand the series of events leading to a heinous crime — the tortured childhood of the criminal, the mental and physical abuse, the utterly shattered moral compass — do we have to clear him of responsibility? Or is there an element of free will in even the most tormented psyche? Do even misused, damaged minds have the capacity for moral choice and thus accountability for their actions? If some crimes seem literally "mad" by their very natures — gruesome murders, serial killings — then can't the offender always get off with an insanity plea?
And then who's not absolved of "deliberate" murder: Hitler and Pol Pot, Stalin and Mao? Can any of these mass murderers be credibly ruled "sane?"
Like most people, I believe that there is, in the majority of humans, an area of freedom that makes them responsible for their actions. But Bryony Lavery, in her excellent play Frozen, wants us to reconsider this idea when looking at Ralph, a pedophile and serial child-murderer. Lavery doesn't try to force us to take Ralph's side; instead she shows us not only him, but Nancy, his 10-year-old murder victim's stricken mother, a woman whose deep pain is so convincingly communicated, we're tempted to want Ralph executed as much as she does. Further, Lavery paints Ralph not as a poor, misunderstood wretch but as a leering, crotch-grabbing collector of contraband child porn whose only regret is that infanticide isn't legal.
When forensic psychiatrist Agnetha makes a distinction between "crimes of evil" and "crimes of illness," we're already predisposed to see Ralph as evil. And when Rhona's remains are found buried beneath Ralph's shed, our sympathy for stunned Nancy only magnifies our anger.
But Lavery won't leave things that simple; and one of the many virtues of Frozen is that it carefully eats away at our confidence in Ralph's guilt even while showing us the extent of Nancy's misery. Another of the play's strengths is its unusual but affecting structure: All of the first scenes are monologues by Nancy, Ralph and Agnetha, and only after we've come to know each character separately do they meet, interact, touch.
Further, the time scheme of the play is unexpected: We first see Nancy on the day of Rhona's disappearance, then it's seven months later, then five years, then 20. Nobody reacts to events exactly as we might guess — in one heart-rending scene where Nancy is allowed to pick up her dead daughter's skull, she tells us "It's beautiful … I can feel her head, it's shape and texture and … resilience and I'm flooded with its Joy!" And when Nancy's daughter suggests that it might be therapeutic for the older woman to forgive her daughter's killer, Nancy responds with "I want to slap you, I want to spit in your face, I want to scratch you, I want to tear your eyes out."
Almost everything about Frozen is unfamiliar, original; and if its ending is just a little too neat, that doesn't detract from an experience that's unlike any other I can think of. Even if you disagree with Lavery's final stance, I think you'll be glad you saw this remarkable play.
And you'll be glad you witnessed Richard Coppinger as Ralph. Coppinger has long been a Stageworks regular, and I've enjoyed his acting as the pitiable, exhausted slave Lucky in Waiting for Godot and the greedy, callous Harpagon in Molière's The Miser. But the performance he gives in Frozen has no parallel in anything else he's done. He plays the horrid man without ever once reaching for our sympathy, without once trying to mitigate our repulsion or censure. There aren't many actors who so little need the audience's favor that they'll offer a performance as consistently ugly as this one. And just because Coppinger's Ralph is so despicable, Lavery's argument about the limits of his culpability feels more honest.
Also terrific is Monica Merryman as Nancy, the woman least likely to pardon Ralph's offense. Merryman plays Nancy as a pleasant, comfortable wife and mother whose world is destroyed in one awful afternoon. At first she refuses to believe the worst about her daughter; she looks after the girl's room, keeping her stuffed lion and her favorite stone on the table where Rhona left them. But even membership in an organization that searches for missing children can't protect her from the worst news. And when she learns that Ralph has confessed to Rhona's murder, she responds with a kind of pain that's all the more terrible in how it's suppressed: "I wanted to go out for a walk, up a hill somewhere, find some fresh air, there's no air … I wish this weather would break. I wish it would pour it down. It's unbearable. Great Big Storm."
Merryman's performance is so convincing that we find ourselves repeatedly feeling with her — now hope, now despair, now rage, now relief. But Janet Salem's portrayal of psychiatrist Agnetha isn't nearly as successful. Salem isn't as specific as Coppinger or Merryman, doesn't really persuade us that she's in love with another doctor, or has much in the way of an existence offstage. And she never delivers her lectures on the criminal brain so that we understand the significance of these studies to her own emotional life. Maybe Lavery hasn't given Agnetha much of a journey to take, but the actress might have tried to fill in the gap. She doesn't, and the play is a little less interesting as a result.
But in all other features Stageworks' Frozen is top notch. Director Anna Brennen demonstrates an impressive respect for the ironies in the drama, for its extremes of emotion and its significant silences. Scott Cooper's abstract set, of a few long, asymmetrical whitish platforms, has an Arctic integrity, and Amanda Bearss' many fine costumes range from dowdy (Ralph) to conservative (Agnetha). The eclectic sound design, uncredited in my program, contributes mightily to the atmosphere of tension and mystery.
So this play, and this production, deserve a large audience. But on the evening I attended, most seats were sadly empty, meaning a lot of area theatergoers are missing one of the best shows of the year. I assume the problem is the subject matter, which of course is disturbing.
But Frozen isn't just about the murder of a 10-year-old. It's about philosophical issues like guilt and innocence, about the transit from grief to acceptance, about forgiveness itself: when it's justified, when it's not. It should be seen by anyone who values intellect, emotion and originality in the theater — or who just loves great acting. It's got more going for it than 20 plays on gentler themes.
And it's a powerful reminder that, at its best, live theater can touch us profoundly and make us revisit our deepest principles.
This article appears in Sep 20-26, 2006.