SOUR APPLE-TINIS, AT NJ REP
Don’t sit under the apple tree with anyone else but me: Michael Pollard and Carol Todd co-star in the East Coast premiere of APPLE, the drama by Vern Thiessen that starts previews Thursday at New Jersey Repertory Company. (Photos by SuzAnne Barabas)
By TOM CHESEK
Okay, we’ll bite: what is it about Apple, the play that makes its East Coast debut this week on the stage of New Jersey Repertory Company in Long Branch, that inspires such radically different points of view?
Why do some people see it as a sex-infused study in onstage “faux-nication,” while others find in it a vehicle for some truly shocking violence? Could there be a date-night romcom in there somewhere?
As director of the new production, NJ Rep co-founder SuzAnne Barabas can only speak for her own choices in bringing the script by Canadian playwright Vern Thiessen to life. She’ll indicate that the core of the play — “an unflinching look at an extramarital affair that develops more than the usual problems” — has as many interpretations as anything blurted out in a lovers’ quarrel; that it’s a “date” play insofar as whether your idea of a date includes that “talk about our relationship” on the drive home.
For the three sides of the triangle, Barabas is working with a trio of veterans from the unofficial stock company of Rep regulars. There’s Carol Todd, so chillingly effective as the ruthlessly organized suburban hausfrau in last year’s Place Setting. There’s Deborah Baum, star of the awesome epic Americana The Good Daughter. And there’s Michael Pollard, whose deft turns in the silly comedies Big Boys and Ten Percent of Molly Snyder still only hinted at what this intense character man can do.
The director and husband/exec producer Gabor Barabas went out to their fave pizza place in West Long Branch after tech rehearsal. Red Bank oRBit, as you may have guessed, was already there on the scene.
Core values: Michael Pollard and Deborah Baum are two sides of a classic triangle.
RED BANK ORBIT: I actually saw this play in a reading that you did here a couple of years ago. It’s hard to describe, other than the fact that it involves an extramarital affair. How do you sum this one up?
SUZANNE BARABAS: It’s really about ordinary people; about things that could happen to anybody. When I first read it, I thought it was a piece of cake. Then when I read it again, I discovered that it was a layer cake!
How do you mean?
It seems like a very simple play. The seductions are very simple; it’s not like a glamorous love triangle from a Hollywood movie. But at the same time the play has a lot of challenges. Hopefully we were able to meet them.
What kind of challenges? Is it that there’s a lot of dialogue to get right?
The dialogue is very specific. You really have to listen to it, but let’s just say that nobody ad-libs or paraphrases when they’re doing this show. You can’t even put an extra “uh” in it. It gives you a rhythm — it’s like a song.
It seems to me that whenever a reading becomes a regular mainstage show, it takes about a year for that to happen. Was this script extensively modified from the version you performed, what, three years ago?
There is a new published draft, but it’s really not significantly different from the version we did at the reading, which was in 2003 — it’s just that we prefer to do world premieres when we can, and this had already been produced in Canada.
Something must have stuck with you after you did this show.
Carol Todd, when she was doing Place Setting here, really lobbied for this play — she suggested that we do a table reading of it, and when I listened to the script again, I thought differently about it.
By that time, it had already been done in America, right?
It had its first U.S. production in Chicago , which Vern Thiessen saw and said it was a very sexual production — he thought they went overboard with it. He also saw productions of the play in Poland, where it was interpreted as something very violent.
Violent? How did they manage that?
In the Polish production, the husband character actually beats up his wife onstage. He’s lost his job, his relationship is going down, and in Poland a wife just wouldn’t get away with the things that she says and she does in the play. They felt it necessary to have him beat her.
Yipe. I know that you’ve staged some pretty provocative stuff in the past, but I’m thinking that you’re not taking that route here.
No, no sex or beatings. It’s provocative in that it’s a play that can provoke some serious conversation between couples! But it’s done simply; we wanted to keep the simplicity, to keep a Zen-like feel.
You’ve got a dream cast to work with here; all people I’m familiar with from other shows — did you have your casting in mind when you put this project on the schedule?
No, we still held formal auditions. You don’t want to play favorites, even when you have a stock company like we’ve been able to develop. You throw it out there, see who comes in to try out; see what they bring. That way, whoever gets a role here — they take it. They own it.
Apple plays in discount-priced previews at 2pm and 8pm Thursday and Friday. Opening night with catered reception is Saturday at 8pm, and there are two shows on Sunday. After that, it continues until November 23 with performances Thursdays through Sundays. For ticket reservations, schedule details and ticket prices, take it here.
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October 21, 2008
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[...] For the three vertices of the triangle, Barabas is working with a trio of veterans from the unofficial stock company of Rep regulars. There’s Carol Todd, so chillingly effective as the ruthlessly organized suburban hausfrau in last …[Continue Reading] [...]
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[...] OF DISCORD: Apple at New Jersey Repertory Company. In an interview on oRBit a couple of weeks back, director SuzAnne Barabas said of the play Apple, “When I [...]
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[...] in Long Branch, director SuzAnne Barabas and a crack team of NJ Rep regulars put a final polish on Apple, the script by Canadian playwright Vern Thiessen now in the final days of its East Coast premiere. [...]
November 20th, 2008 at 5:30 amWarning: mysql_connect() [function.mysql-connect]: Access denied for user 'redbank_wpdb'@'67.23.5.249' (using password: YES) in /var/www/redbankorbit/public/wordpress/wp-content/themes/ileather-10/comments.php on line 34
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[...] nota 10. Leave a Reply. Click here to cancel reply. Name (required) Mail (will not be published) …SOUR APPLE-TINIS, AT NJ REP [ Red Bank Orbit ]( Photos by SuzAnne Barabas) By TOM CHESEK. Okay, we’ll bite: what is it about Apple, the … new [...]
March 2nd, 2010 at 7:48 pm