The Fourth Wall

written by A.R. Gurney, directed by David Saint

at the Hasty Pudding

A.R. Gurney came to Cambridge last week seeking feedback on The Fourth Wall, his new play at the Hasty Pudding Theatre.

The Fourth Wall radically departs from Gurney's typical romantic comedy. Straying from the genre which bore such successes as The Dining Room and Love Letters, Gurney ventures into the world of the postmodern.

The play opens as Roger (Tony Roberts) and Julia (Kelly Bishop), discuss the "fourth wall."

In the world of theater, as Andre Antoine's quote states in the program, "the fourth wall is the name we give to the hypothetical wall that separates the stage from the audience in a proscenium theatre."

But, for Roger and Julia, the fourth wall is literally the fourth wall of Roger's apartment which his wife Peggy (E. Katherine Kerr) has chosen to leave absolutely bare. Disturbed by the blankness of the wall, Roger and Julia declare that they feel like they are being watched, as if they were in a play.

Gurney establishes his meta-theatrical premise and then proceeds to make the audience aware of the contrivance of his play and of the medium in general. Roger and Julia discuss how their actions contribute to the plot and talk about wanting to "have scenes" with other characters.

In order to understand in what direction their "play" is going, Peggy and Roger call in Floyd, a theater professor from NYU.

Floyd, played masterfully by Jack Gilpin, is a caricature of an academic. He lives through the plays he studies. Despite his impressive knowledge of drama, Floyd's inability to be part of the adult world is clear when he announces shamefully that he still wets his bed.

The introduction of the pretentious bedwetter has interesting possibilities, but the play runs dry. The idea of characters figuring out their own play has been done before.

Like Beckett's "Waiting for Godot," the play consists of far more waiting than plot. When Julia says, "We've been sitting here for 20 minutes and we haven't got to the plot," she could not have read the audience's mind better.

Gurney strives to keep the audience entertained through his trademark witty dialogue, and often succeeds. When Julia begins a story, "I have a friend....," Floyd cuts her off in a snotty voice, "I seriously doubt that."

Gurney also uses Cole Porter songs in an effort to keep the play moving. However wonderful the songs may be, they do not fit well with the rest of the play. Although each final note evoked applause from the audience, the songs detract from the cohesiveness of "The Fourth Wall."

Gurney has a distinct beginning and end, but the rest of the play seems like filler. In order to have some plot other than what the four characters will do about the fourth wall, Gurney creates the subplot of a possible affair between Roger and Julia. But Peggy is not worried enough about Roger and Julia to intervene when they are locked in the bedroom together. Although Gurney does create some suspense with the possibility of the affair, he thwarts it and renders it meaningless.

By making the affair plot unimportant, Gurney mocks tv shows and movies which do revolve around such typical plots. In fact, Gurney takes several stabs at sitcoms.

Another target of Gurney's comic attack is George Bush. Peggy gives a speech that Clinton campaign advisors would have loved. But like the Cole Porter songs, the speech would be good in another context, but it does not jibe well with the rest of the play.

In his talk with Harvard students sponsored by Harvard's Office for the Arts, Gurney said he was trying to make a political statement with The Fourth Wall.

When asked what he was trying to do with Peggy's speech, Gurney replied that it was a "slash across the canvas." But the slash does not come across as a bold political statement; rather, it jars the feeling of the play.

Although Gurney does not quite achieve his goal of writing a forceful political play, he does successfully challenge the constraints of the medium of the play.

In the program, Gurney writes, "I myself have been writing plays of one kind or another for almost forty years, and more and more I find myself prowling around this cell I have put myself in, testing its possibilities, and at least pretending to cherish its restrictions."

The Fourth Wall is more about drama than it is about anything else. Gurney fills the play with allusions to playwrights ranging from Aristophanes and Sophocles to Shakespeare, Beckett, and Pirandello. The script would make a good final for a drama survey course if the professor asked the students to identify and discuss all the allusions.

The Fourth Wall may not be a masterpiece but it does further the postmodern tradition, signifying a personal breakthrough for A.R. Gurney.