Artist, art, life are all seeds that sprout in 'Asparagus'

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Artist, art, life are all seeds that sprout in 'Asparagus'

Saturday, February 06, 1999

By Christopher Rawson, Post-Gazette Drama Critic

Can you re-tell its story in a page? A paragraph? A sentence?

Stage Review:
New Play Festival
"Asparagus"
WHERE: Gemini Theater at The Factory, 7501 Penn Ave., Point Breeze.
WHEN: 8:05 p.m. tonight.
TICKETS: $6; 412-243-6464.

That's the imperative faced by someone trying to pitch a movie idea. So however reductive it may be, let's apply the test to "Asparagus," a challenging new play by accomplished writer Jeanne Drennan, now getting a one-weekend (ends tonight) staging at the Gemini Theater New Play Festival.

This reductivity test seems appropriate because "Asparagus" is all about Emily, a writer who is hammering out a movie script. Well, no, it's about a marriage. No, it's really about a relationship between two friends. Better yet, it's about the intersection of creativity and commerce. Or about the process of artistic creation, in which everything in the artist's life - trivial or profound - becomes meat for the artistic grinder.

Certainly all that fails the test. Drennan's structural complexity establishes so many cross-referenced story lines, each taking off from and commenting on one or more of the others, that it can be hard to keep track, even though you know that those tracks will eventually begin to cross and simplify.

Or do they? I think it's to her credit that they don't. There's nothing like a simple resolution to "Asparagus." (Naturally, the need for a happy and/or twist ending is also at issue in "Wedding March," the movie script Drennan's heroine is writing throughout the play.) Part of me insists this open-endedness and scattering of substance are strengths. Who wants phony neat packages?

But then there is that movie mogul's test, and I have to admit that I came away from the play somewhat bewildered by an amorphousness or multiplicity of focus. I don't get any help from the title.

The problem may be one of shaping. Drennan establishes a number of interesting relationships, especially that between Emily and Barb, her tough-as-nails friend who works for the movie producer in whipping the script into shape. Each relationship has conflict. But Drennan pushes none to a crisis. The result is a certain overall flatness, diffusing coherence.

But none of this contradicts my admiration for the scope and interest of what Drennan achieves. This is a big story, yes, but there are also many moments of personal insight into the struggle to create, as well as welcome humor about the writers' pitfalls. Most intriguing, Drennan occasionally interweaves her stories physically, as when Emily imagines her own daughter as simultaneously a friend's daughter and a character in her movie.

Drennan is well-served by David Philip Tener's production, which moves briskly through her three-act, many-location, zillion-scene play in under 21/4 hours.

Tener enlists an admirable cast, led by Allison Cahill, who portrays Emily with a simple sensitivity that never strains for emotional effect. Also in tune is Demetria Mellott, who plays the colleague/friend with a brisk surface and interesting implications. We'd like to know more about her, if the play could accommodate more.

The first two weeks of the Gemini festival featured works by Lynne Conner and James McManus. Add Drennan and that's a pretty impressive lineup of accomplished local writers for a festival in its first year.