Third

Reviewed by Holly Bartges

Realistic, down to earth, honest Third now playing at The Space Theatre at the Bonfils Complex in DPCA, explores and uncovers truth behind the wanting to pigeon hole people into black and white boxes.

Caitlin O’Connell as Professor Laurie Jameson and Mattie Hawkinson as Emily Imbrie in the Denver Center Theatre Company season-opening production of Third. Photo by Terry Shapiro

Playwright Wendy Wasserstein, probably best known for her Pulitzer prize winning play The Heidi Chronicles, spoke to and for a generation of bright, intelligent and often dissatisfied women, died of cancer at the early age of 55 on January 2006.

Third, Wasserstein’s last play, began life as two one-acts, which she fortunately expanded into the completed two-act.

Directed by Wendy C. Goldberg, on a stage setting designed by Lisa M. Orzolek with only the barest of necessities, reflected with warm and cool lighting designed by Charles R. MacLeod as the various changing moods required, the stage came alive with the expertise of the cast. The five magnificent actors cloaked themselves stylishly not only with costumes designed by Anne Kennedy, but the richness of human depth in fragility, shackled opinions, eyes that see but do not perceive, ears that hear but do not listen, surrounded by gloried accomplishments.

Caitlin O’Connell who began her acting career as a company member in the 1980’s with the Denver Center Theatre Company, and who has fortunately graced the DCTC’s stages several times since, invites us in for a close up personal visit with Laurie Jameson, a college professor.

Laurie prides herself on her liberal stance, her accomplishments in academia. A strong, forceful intelligent woman, Laurie has the world by the tail. Organized and categorized, all the pieces of her life fit together. She’s a V.I.P. who has earned her stripes wearing her pride tall, straight and narrow.

Well, there are a couple of glitches her rose colored glasses aren’t quite able to reflect.

Married to a political science professor, she claims to be quite proud of, and yet complains he spends all of his free time at home lifting weights upstairs. Something about a relationship appears to be missing. Her husband never appears on stage although the sound of his weights is frequently heard. He’s too engaged to come downstairs.

Her college daughter, Emily, beautifully played by Mattie Hawkinson fields complaints from Laurie because she rarely gets to see her. Emily simply reminds her she is always too busy to stop what she is doing to give her daughter attention. There is always another news program to watch.

Laurie’s father, Jack, richly, humorously, agonizingly played by Philip Pleasants, suffers from advanced Alzheimer’s. ”He can’t find his way to the bathroom, and he refuses to wear diapers,” Laurie complains, while watching the news, when Emily inquires about her grandfather. No question, Laurie loves her father sensing the agony of losing him, but it is Emily’s tenderness that clothes him in understanding even though he appears to live in another world.

Nancy Gordon, Laurie’s best friend, a professor of English Literature, grapples with the fact her cancer has returned. Patricia Randell plays her with a quiet strength, uneasy over her future, filled with hope shaded in honest despair. The two bring to light a very common problem. Laurie, the go-getter, with the let’s-fix-it-if-it’s-broke mentality seeks out Nancy’s doctor compiling a list of things Nancy needs to do.

Randell’s quiet strength approach to Nancy lets it be known she is anything but pleased Laurie took it upon herself to interfere. This was her journey she needed to go through in her own way and in her own time no matter how well meaning the attempt was.

On top of these compartmentalized elements within Laurie’s life, hot flashes frequently invade her concentration, and then in a Shakespeare class she comes face with Woodson Bull III, deliciously, energetically, intelligently, and straightforwardly played by Billy Wheelan.

Quick to judge, confident in her decision she is always right, Laurie decides Third, as he wishes to be addressed, doesn’t belong in this private liberal arts college. He’s a wrestling jock, on scholarship. Jocks are all brawn and no brain and he can’t possibly know, much less care, about Shakespeare. Besides she thinks the name Third is out of place and he should call himself Woody.

Because he has an important wrestling match scheduled during a class requirement to watch a film on King Lear scheduled for two times at the Boyer House in preparation for their mid-term paper, Third approaches her with the request to borrow it at a more convenient time. Thus begins their crackling, slanted opinionated relationship.

Underestimating his ingenuity, his personal interest in King Lear, Third turns in on time a brilliantly written paper.

Without asking him any questions, without taking the time to find out more about this wrestling jock, Laurie’s professional locked in arrogance accuses him of academic plagiarism. “No one with your verbal facility and interests could write this.” She insists. Without further adieu, she informs him she is reporting this to the Committee of Academic Standards where he will have to defend himself. Quietly and assuredly he claims he did not plagiarize the paper. It contains his original thinking, and he in turn accuses her of reverse discrimination.

A particular moving scene appears with Nancy at her desk lost in her world of should’s with things that need to be completed and her private torment of cancer reality. Randell’s glimpse into Nancy’s private thought world takes the breath away. At this moment, Third approaches her. She’s on the committee and he, unaware of her private hell, just wants her to read his paper.

The magnificence of this particular play lies with its human honesty of every day events. The chemistry of the cast feeds into the cohesiveness of the characters that play a vital role in the development of Laurie’s willingness to entertain new ideas. It doesn’t come easy for her, or Nancy, or Third, much less Emily. The characters run deep in an understated means. No one flies in flamboyancy. No one grandstands. These characters could well live next door, or even in our own home. They are every day people we might know, have lunch with periodically. They could even be us. Knowing Wasserstein wrote Third while she confronted her own cancer in her private closet turns this play into “shudderings” and “shatterings.”

Because of Wasserstein’s brilliant writing, the changes in the thought process of Laurie, Third, and Nancy come with stubborn roadblocks, hampered resistance, but they come. Goldberg’s sensitive direction tempers the characters’ pacing, turning a two-act play into believable honest conscious awareness.

The issues, tempered with humorous one-liners, providing thoughtful quiet giggles, surround us on all levels, including a sense of prejudice most of us do not want to admit to. Jumping to conclusions, putting words into other people’s mouths, boxing in assumptions almost seems to be a hidden national pastime.

Third should not be seen. It wants to be experienced and absorbed. First and foremost, it should not be missed because of its performances, because the issues wear their humanity as comfortably as the actors wear their costumes, and the characters share their vulnerabilities with empowerment. As Wasserstein’s genius touched a generation of women, so her genius also touches a society. Go. Now. Do not miss.