Lanford Wilson's Women

STARRING TANYA BEREZIN CONCHATA FERRELL LANFORD STEPHANIE GORDON TRISH HAWKINS WILSON'S JUDITH IVEY WOMEN THREE ONE ACTS THE GREAT NEBULA IN ORION LUDLOW FAIR THE MOONSHOT TAPE DIRECTED BY MARSHALL W. MASON TRACKS 1 THE GREAT NEBULA IN ORION LOUISE.....Stephanie Gordon CAREY.....Tanya Berezin The American premiere of the play was in May 1972 at the Circle Theater Company with this cast and directed and designed by Marshall W. Mason. 2 LUDLOW FAIR RACHEL .....Trish Hawkins AGNES.....Conchata Farrell The play premiered at the Caffe Cino in New York City in February 1965. It was directed and designed by Neil Flanagan and lighting design by Dennis Parichy. The cast starred Martha Galphin (Rachel) and Jennie Ventriss (Agnes). 3 THE MOONSHOT TAPE DIANE.....Judith Ivey The play was first presented at the Humboldt State University in August 1990 with Roxanne Biggs and the New York premiere was at Circle Repertory Company in March 1994 with Judith Ivey winning an Obie Award for this performance. It was directed by Marshall W. Mason. LANFORD ALL DIRECTED BY MARSHALL W. MASON WILSON'S WOMEN LANFORD WILSON'S WOMEN Lanford Wilson wrote some of the best roles for women in the last quarter of the 20th century. Like his mentor and friend, Tennessee Williams, the female characters in his work reach depths of complexity that make them memorable people we cherish. In this collection of one-act plays written in the 70s and 80s, Lanford’s masterful portraits range from a resonant two-hander called The Great Nebula in Orion, through a youthful comedy of character in a tale of two roommates in Ludlow Fair, to the harrowing narrative of a short story writer reliving the traumatic events of her childhood in The Moonshot Tape. The Great Nebula in Orion centers on the accidental reunion of two mature women who went to college together. Louise (Stephanie Gordon) is a successful New York fashion designer who lives in an apartment overlooking the Hayden Planetarium. She has run into Carrie (Tanya Berezin) in Bergdorf’s on a shopping trip from her home in Boston. Carry has married into the upper 2%, firmly entrenched in a life of social perquisites; but the site of the planetarium takes her back to an almost forgotten romance with a young dreamer who introduced her to the majestic mysteries of the constellations in the night sky. As these two catch up on the intervening years, secrets are revealed that shake the complacency of the present, with tumultuous passions buried in the past. In a turn of comedic mastery, Ludlow Fair treats us to the tribulations of two mismatched young women sharing an apartment. Rachel (Trish Hawkins) has turned in her recent boyfriend, Joe, for making off with her savings, and now wonders if she’s done the right thing. Her contrasting roommate is cynical Agnes (Conchata Ferrell) who reminds Rachel of the dizzying history of young men the pretty girl has run through before falling prey to a hunk who’s ripped her off. While Rachel stews over her moral dilemma, Agnes is preparing for bed, fighting off a cold, and hoping for a threadbare romantic lunch with her boss’ skinny son. All Rachel wants is to be assured things will be better tomorrow, but Agnes shoots that down: it LANFORD WILSON'S WOMEN w will be exactly the same tomorrow. The bittersweet contrast between these young ladies is heartbreakingly funny. The Moonshot Tape lets us listen to Diane (Judith Ivey), a famous short-story writer revisiting her Midwestern hometown. She is being interviewed by a local girl writing for the high school paper. Diane is staying in a motel near a hospital, where her mother is waiting to transfer to a nursing home. The young journalist’s questions, although naïve, pierce Diane’s sophisticated style and with the aid of a little vodka, unleashes memories that are at the foundations of her identity. She decides to answer the girl’s questions as honestly as possible. The result is a reliving of experiences that shock and devastate the listener, as we journey into a tormented past. Together, these three one-acts demonstrate the power and skill of a writer who understands the complex issues faced by women and has used his talent to create these unforgettable portraits. The actors are the original cast members who premiered these plays at the Circle Repertory Company and this recording captures their electrifying performances. You’ll always remember these women as intimate revelations of the human spirit. MARSHALL W. MASON Marshall W. Mason, Founding Artistic Director of Circle Rep LANFORD WILSON'S WOMEN LANFORD'S ONE-ACTS Lanford Wilson and I were talking about influences. I said I assumed that many people believed he was influenced by Chekhov and Tennessee Williams, but the writer he put me most in mind of was Thornton Wilder. Lanford confirmed, “Thornton Wilder was damned important. I at least knew Thornton Wilder’s work. I didn’t know Chekhov’s work. They called me Chekhovian so many times I said, ‘I’d better read his stuff.’” (He later learned Russian so he could read Chekhov in the original language.) Continuing to speak about Wilder, he commented that two of the works he was drawn to were the one-acts, Pullman Car Hiawatha and The Long Christmas Dinner. “And, of course, for years, The Skin of Our Teeth was my favorite play.” Why Wilder? Well, for all the attention paid to Lanford’s strain of poetic naturalism, it shouldn’t be forgotten that – similar to Wilder – he loved to play with the conventions of play- writing, tinkering with form and seeing see how far he could go in experimenting with the interaction between what happens on the stage and in the audience. In his brilliant memory play, Lemon Sky, at one point Alan (an autobiographic character) interrupts a scene to comment to the audience that the line just spoken is his favorite line in the play. Lanford gets away with this sort of thing a lot, and somehow without tipping over into preciousness. In many of his plays, he relishes the artificiality of the form and his audience’s collusion in an illusion. It’s as if he is saying, “You and I both know these are actors talking loud under lights and facing a crowd of strangers, but isn’t it glorious that we choose to believe they are characters being overheard in a private circumstance even as we consciously know they aren’t?” You see this antic sensibility particularly in one of my favorite of his one-acts, Great Nebula in Orion (doesn’t that sound like a title Thornton Wilder might have created?). Two women who haven’t seen each other in years alternate between dealing with each other and confiding in the audience. Then he pushes it so that they are aware of each other’s communications through the fourth wall and they start talking in this alternate plane. It’s LANFORD WILSON'S WOMEN w hard to describe how this enhances the play, but I don’t need to explain. You have a recording here to listen to featuring Tanya Berezin and Stephanie Gordon in the parts I saw them play off-off-Broadway in 1972. All three of these pieces were here are played by actresses Lanford had ongoing relation- ships with. One of the things that Lanford had in common with Tennessee Williams was his great gift at writing roles for women, and this collection of recordings is designed to celebrate that. Ludlow Fair wasn’t originally written for Conchata Ferrell and Trish Hawkins, but they loved and revived the play in the early 1970s, and it became theirs. In this recording, they are again two roommates with active interior lives. The Moonshot Tape is a monologue that was part of a bill of monologues presented at Lanford’s home, the Circle Repertory Theater, a company he co-founded with director Marshall W. Mason, Tanya Berezen and Rob Thirkield. Judith Ivey played it in their home near Sheridan Square and won and Obie Award for it in 1994. Recording it more than two decades later, Ivey brought an exuberant fury to the role of a celebrated novelist who takes peculiar revenge on someone who had preyed upon her when she was young. I was sitting four or five feet away from her when she recorded this. Being that close to Judy in full blaze is one of those experiences you never forget, like surviving a tornado (but in a good way). All of these pieces were directed by Marshall W. Mason who, aside from co-founding Circle Rep, directed the vast majority of the premieres of Lanford’s plays. I don’t have the resources handy to check this, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they hold the record for the number of productions they collaborated on as playwright and director. Their partnership enriched the theatre for decades, and they inspired those of us who were trying to get started in the theatre at the time. Including particularly me. I am delighted to have been able to express my thanks by helping to put together this recording. Sit somewhere where you won’t be distracted, turn down the lights, and prepare yourself for three extraordinary visits with the imagination of a great American playwright. JEFFREY SWEET Jeffrey Sweet, playwright and co-producer of this recording LANFORD WILSON'S WOMEN THREE ONE ACTS TRACK 1 THE GREAT NEBULA IN ORION 44:56 TRACK 2 LUDLOW FAIR 39:05 TRACK 3 THE MOONSHOT TAPE 51:00 Produced by Glen Roven and Jeffrey Sweet Mixed and Mastered at M&I Studios, NYC Executive Producer Ira Yuspeh Associate Producer Jonathan Blalock Art Direction Margot Frankel Cover Image John D.

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