Deborah Brevoort’s drama, inspired by the historical connection between Marian Anderson and Albert Einstein, is uplifting but ultimately a little teachy. The hidden star of this production is Larry Paulsen as the vinegary, steely Abraham Flexner, founder of Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Study. Paulsen/Flexner patiently endures a moment when it appears that he needs to have Jim Crow explained to him.
A unsettling two-hander by Joseph Dougherty concerns Chester Bailey, an ironworker (working in a WWII shipyard) who has suffered a harrowing industrial accident, and Philip Cotton, the psychiatrist charged with restoring Chester to some degree of mental health. Chester, played with goofy naïveté by Ephraim Birney, has developed a sort of hysterical seeing that tells him his physical disability is not so severe. Like Dysart with Alan Strang, the peppery Dr. Cotton (John Leonard Thompson as a last-minute fill-in at this performance) makes his peace with an outcome in which “there is no kindness.”
- Contemporary American Theater Festival at Shepherd University, Shepherdstown, W. Va.
- My Lord, What a Night, by Deborah Brevoort, directed by Ed Herendeen
- Chester Bailey, by Joseph Dougherty, directed by Ron Lagomarsino