41st Season • 393rd Production JULIANNE ARGYROS STAGE / SEPTEMBER 26 - OCTOBER 17, 2004 David Emmes Martin Benson PRODUCING ARTISTIC DIRECTOR ARTISTIC DIRECTOR presents the West Coast premiere of THE RETREAT FROM MOSCOW BY William Nicholson SCENIC AND COSTUME DESIGN LIGHTING DESIGN SOUND DESIGN Angela Balogh Calin York Kennedy Karl Fredrik Lundeberg PRODUCTION MANAGER STAGE MANAGER Jeff Gifford *Jamie A. Tucker DIRECTED BY Martin Benson HONORARY PRODUCERS Sue and Ralph Stern “The Retreat From Moscow” was first produced at the Chichester Festival in October 1999 and was first produced in New York City on October 23, 2003, at the Booth Theatre by Susan Quint Gallin, Stuart Thompson, Ron Kastner, True Love Productions, Mary Lu Roffe and Jam Theatricals The Retreat from Moscow • SOUTH COAST REPERTORY P1 CAST OF CHARACTERS (In order of appearance) Edward ............................................................................. Nicholas Hormann* Jamie .............................................................................................. John Sloan* Alice ..................................................................................... Linda Gehringer* LENGTH Approximately two hours, including one 15-minute intermission. PRODUCTION STAFF Casting .............................................................................. Joanne DeNaut Assistant to the Director .................................................. Valerie Rachelle Production Assistant ............................................................... Nina Evans Stage Management Intern .................................................. Cristin Downs Please refrain from unwrapping candy or making other noises that may disturb surrounding patrons. The use of cameras and recorders in the theatre is prohibited. Smoking is not permitted anywhere in the theatre. Cellular phones, beepers and watch alarms should be turned off or set to non-audible mode during the performance. * Member of Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers. Official Airline Media Partner P2 SOUTH COAST REPERTORY • The Retreat from Moscow The Wellspring and the Metaphor riting is an odd enterprise. Why take the frag- much I hurt. I lie to survive. I tell a story of myself that ments of lived experience and rearrange them in I hope will make others love and admire me. But more some new pattern? Why tell stories at all? For a and more, I write to strip away these lies, and say Look, Wwhile I supposed the urge came from a need to this is how it really is. What then? I look. I recognize tidy up the mess of life, to impose meaning on the the truth. That’s all. No moral. No lesson. No conso- meaningless. More recently, I have come to see that I lation. And yet it’s profoundly satisfying. This is the am in the grip of a greater drive, which I name with experience the great writers give me. It’s what I’m try- some hesitation, because it seems too grand. I am try- ing to do in my own work. ing, clumsily, to reach the truth of my life. This is hard. –William Nicholson Like everyone else, I tell lies all the time, most of all to Introduction to The Retreat from Moscow myself. I lie about who I am and what I want and how Anchor Books, New York, 2004 Marshal Ney leading the rearguard, engraved by Henry Wolf "A huge flock of ravens wheeled croaking over the city, and although the sun still shone, no one could fail to notice the autumnal chill of the late afternoons and early mornings. Perhaps it was this, or the first light fall of snow that soon disappeared, that made the commanders of the doomed army so gloomy and apprehensive, despite their presence here in the enemy capital, with an army of 108,000 men around them… He was in a gloomy indecisive mood. He knew that his sole hope of emerging from Russia with the minimum prestige [meant] he had to get back and soon, before the heavy snow began to fall." –R. F. Delderfied, The Retreat from Moscow, Atheneum, NY, 1967 The Retreat from Moscow •SOUTH COAST REPERTORY P3 Both Sides Now Marriages are made in Heaven. A Roman divorced from his wife, being highly –Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Aylmer's Field blamed by his friends, who demanded, “Was she not chaste?” Was she not fair? Was she not fruitful?” holding out his shoe, asked them whether it was If marriages are made in Heaven, they should be not new and well made. “Yet,” added he, “none of happier. you can tell me where it pinches.” –Thomas Southerne, The Fatal Marriage (1694) –“Aemilius Paulus” from Lives, Plutarch After marriage arrives a reaction, sometimes a big, Marriage is a noose. sometimes a little, one; but it comes sooner or later, –Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote and must be tided over by both parties if they desire the rest of their lives to go * * * with the current. –Rudyard Kipling, Plain How To Be Happy Though Tales from the Hills Married –book title, by The Rev. E. J. Hardy, In married life, three is 1910 company and two none. –Oscar Wilde, The Marriage is that relation Importance of Being Earnest between man and woman in which the independence * * * is equal, the dependence mutual, and the obligation Where's the man could ease a heart reciprocal. Like a satin gown? –Louis K. Anspacher –Dorothy Parker, “The Satin Dress” A good marriage is that in which each appoints the Yet this be the need of woman, this her curse: other guardian of his solitude. Once the realization To raise her little gifts, and give, and give, is accepted that even between the closest human Because the throb of giving's sweet to bear. beings infinite distances continue to exist, a –Dorothy Parker, “I Know I Have Been Happiest” wonderful living side by side can grow up, if they succeed in loving the distance between them which Hail wedded love, mysterious law, true source makes it possible for each to see the other whole Of human offspring, sole propriety, against the sky. In Paradise of all things common else. –Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters –John Milton, Paradise Lost * * * * * * More than man desires to marry, woman desires to Children begin by loving their parents; after a time be married. they judge them; rarely, if ever, do they forgive –Talmud: Yebamoth, 113A them. –Oscar Wilde, A Woman of No Importance P4 SOUTH COAST REPERTORY • The Retreat from Moscow LINDA GEHRINGER NICHOLAS HORMANN JOHN SLOAN Alice Edward Jamie Artist Biographies *LINDA GEHRINGER (Alice) appeared Three Sisters, Catherine in The Heiress, zons, the New York Shakespeare Fes- at SCR in The Last Night of Ballyhoo, Edward/Betty in Cloud 9 and Ann tival, Second Stage, Chelsea Theatre The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow, Stanton in All the King’s Men. She Center and The Group. In July 2004 Relatively Speaking, The Carpetbag- holds an MFA from the University of he appeared in new plays by Beth ger’s Children, Getting Frankie Mar- Minnesota and has received numerous Henley and Joe Hortua at Robert Red- ried—and Afterwards, Hold Please, A critical awards. Her television roles ford’s Sundance Theatre Lab. At SCR Delicate Balance, All My Sons, Arca- include four seasons as Fontana on he has played Tobias in A Delicate dia, Good As New and as Helen Gaha- “Evening Shade” and guest appear- Balance, Henry Higgins in Pygmalion gan Douglas in But Not for Me. Most ances on “Boston Legal,” “The West (Drama-Logue Award), Charles Con- recently she appeared at Baltimore Wing,” “The Practice,” “Ally McBeal,” domine in Blithe Spirit (Drama-Logue Center Stage in Picnic. Performances “Providence,” “Touched by an Angel,” Award), Teddy in The Homecoming, at other Southern California theatres “The Larry Sanders Show,” “Law and Leonard in Making It, John in Lips To- include Be Aggressive and Light Up the Order: Criminal Intent,” “Boomtown,” gether, Teeth Apart, Prosper Blondlot Sky at La Jolla Playhouse, The Poison and a recurring role on “The Divi- in The Company of Heaven, Spindle- Tree at Mark Taper Forum and sion.” She also appeared in the film quick in Boundary Waters, Tesman in Strange Snow at Laguna Playhouse. As Good as It Gets. Hedda Gabler and Beverly Carlton in Ms. Gehringer has worked at Wash- The Man Who Came to Dinner. Roles ington’s Arena Stage, Boston’s Hunt- *NICHOLAS HORMANN (Edward) ap- elsewhere include Atticus Finch, Lau- ington Theatre, The Guthrie Theater, peared last season in the New York rence Olivier, Benedick and Cyrano the Berkshire Theatre Festival, The premiere of Charles Mee’s Wintertime. de Bergerac. He has performed at the Ojai Playwrights Conference, New He made his Broadway debut in 1973 Kennedy Center, Yale Repertory, Long York Stage and Film and spent seven with the New Phoenix Repertory Wharf, McCarter (Princeton), Hunting- seasons as a company member at the Company in The Visit and Love for ton (Boston), Williamstown, The Old Dallas Theatre Center. Roles include Love directed by Harold Prince. Other Globe, La Jolla Playhouse, Mark Taper Blanche in A Streetcar Named Desire, Broadway appearances include Exe- Forum, the Ahmanson, ACT, Pasadena Regina in The Little Foxes, Wanda in cution of Justice, St. Joan and Moose Playhouse, ACT (Seattle), Milwaukee The Waiting Room, Merteuil in Les Li- Murders. Off-Broadway he has per- Repertory, Alliance Theatre (Atlanta), aisons Dangereuses, Bette in The Mar- formed in new works at the Manhat- the O’Neill Conference and Sundance. riage of Bette and Boo, Olga in The tan Theatre Club, Playwrights Hori- Television appearances include “The The Retreat from Moscow •SOUTH COAST REPERTORY P5 Wonder Years” (Emmy nomination), write, directed first into novels, was duced here. He has distinguished “Seinfeld,” “Frasier,” “According to channeled into television drama. His himself in the staging of contempo- Jim,” “Murphy Brown,” “Encore, En- plays for television include Shadow- rary work, including Horton Foote’s core,” “The Nanny,” “Profiler,” “City lands and Life Story, both of which The Carpetbagger’s Children and the Guys,” “Reasonable Doubts” and “The won the BAFTA Best Television world premiere of Getting Frankie West Wing.” Mr.