The Two River Times

November 2, 2001

Scene On Stage by Philip Dorian

MIDDLETOWN NATIVE'S NEW PLAY PREMIERES

New Jersey Repertory Company Stages Michael Folie's Naked by the River

 

It the mission of Gabor and SuzAnne Barabas's New Jersey Repertory Company to encourage and produce new playwrights. Among the best of their "finds" have been Brian Mori's Adult Fiction and Mark Dunn's North Fork. Naked by the River, by Middletown native Michael T. Folie, ranks right up there with them.

 

At the beginning of Naked by the River, when prim, uptight attorney Peggy (Stephanie Roy) is forced by her boss to hire unkempt, raffish paralegal Tim (Duncan M. Rogers), it's soon apparent that the two will fall in love - or at least into bed. Sometime during the first act, however, it also becomes clear that Mr. Folie's play is much more than a predictable sex comedy. It is a tightly written, intelligent, witty play about two complex young people whose contradictory talents and values bring them together, then pull them apart, and then just maybe reconnect them after all.

 

It is more than Peggy's mannerly attitude and Tim's arrogant sarcasm that separate the two. She's grounded in her legal career, working toward a partnership in a prestigious firm, while he's a seat-of-the-pants sort of guy who appears to be just going along to get along. (His contemptuous attitude and down-right nastiness toward her at the start is overdone. It's a serious flaw in the play, blame for which must be shared by writer, director and actor. It can be - and should be - fixed.)

 

The attraction between the two is ignited when Peggy reads a book Tim has written. While we never learn much about the book, it is their divergent attitudes toward its future that trigger the events of the play. He wants to post it, gratis, on the web, and she envisions conventional publication and a smash success. Whose concept prevails - and does it work? - is the stuff of the play.

 

Once he gets past the over-the-top first scene, Mr. Rogers eases comfortably into the role of the would-be idealist. The character must choose: About his book, he says he had a vision, "No", Peggy tells him, "You had an idea." It is to the actor's credit that Tim appears realistically torn between the two. He's a handsome devil too, which lends credibility to the romance between Tim and Peggy.

 

Not that Ms. Roy needs any help. This actor is as much a find for NJ Rep as is the play. Peggy isn't all veneer, but she does struggle with her professional image, and Ms. Roy captures every nuance of this career woman's dilemma. Her sensitive performance makes everything Peggy says (and, it should be noted, does) exactly right for the time and place. In Ms. Roy's playing, Peggy emerges fresh and open and perfectly natural.

 

We have us a three-character play here, and Liz Zazzi certainly does justice to the acid tongued literary agent. Tough as nails and a real softy at the same time, the character isn't easy, and they play would be harmed if we didn't like her. But we do, thanks to Ms. Zazzi's way with the wry bons mots Mr. Folie has written for Gabriella. Not incidentally, she's realistically pregnant in attitude as well as appearance. Writing her thus, and carrying her to term before the final scene, is one of Mr. Folie's most effective conceits.

 

The play depends on establishing the personas of several people who never appear, and the playwright accomplishes this adroitly. Peggy's boss, her parents and an influential book publisher are fleshed out sufficiently in dialogue that's not forced exposition, and their influence on the on-stage characters is believable.

 

The message of Mr. Folie's play - does success, like power, corrupt? - isn't new. How many new messages are there anyway? What's important is communication that message in an interesting voice, and that the playwright accomplishes. If "interesting" sounds like faint praise, try to remember the last time you were truly interested in the lives portrayed in popular fiction.

 

It doesn't hurt one bit that it is acted so sublimely by Ms. Roy, so commendably by Mr. Rogers and so audaciously by Ms. Zazzi. No hindrance either is Stewart Fisher's direction, sensitive as it is both to character and situation. But from now through November 18 at New Jersey Rep, the play's the thing.