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Opus review - Seattle rep
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Listen to Opus - the Podcast
Playwright Michael Hollinger has taken experiences from his earlier life as a viola player to craft a drama about a string quartet, which relies on well drawn characters and swift dialogue to carry itself through to a captivating conclusion. Opus first premiered in 2006, and follows the machinations of the players in the fictional Lazara String Quartet as they prepare to play at the White House. There are four members obviously, but a fifth, a former member, is skillfully used in flashbacks, to help wrench the tension up and down.
The timing of these 'out of real time' excerpts allows Hollinger to release pertinence into the dialogue as is his whim, and is done with great precision. He told me afterwards that great care and attention was indeed put into the interspersing of factual background among the dialogue of the current story, and it shows. The backdrop is simple. Four chairs are placed on the stage, as if a string quartet are playing from them. The only other props are instruments. The cast both play and speak mostly from sedentary positions, until the tumultuous final scene. Charles Leggett plays Carl, at first the quartet clown, who seems disinterested in the quartet politics and drama. Later we find out why, and the force of his character rises throughout the play.
Shawn Belyea as Alan is our man inside the quartet. He seems to have the same preoccupations as us, and of the four seems to react more than anyone as the average audience member. Before long, you will find yourself turning to him to settle disputes, even a split second before the cast. You yearn for him to stop the bickering, because you become emotionally attached to the fate of this fictional combo very early. Chelsey Rives as Grace is the new girl in the group, brought in to replace Dorian. Her character doesn't utter too many of the dramatic lines and Hollinger uses a female part far more intelligently than in many places I have seen. As the new person arriving into the pre-existing drama of the others, we also partly identify with her. We learn as she learns. Nonetheless, Hollinger bravely resists giving Grace lines just for the sake of it, and that adds a touch of realism to the proceedings that helped to make them more compelling.
I have left till last the two characters that generated the most controversy as we discussed the play afterwards. Elliot Barr is the uptight, anal and we would say highly strung member. He is also just out of a homosexual relationship with former member Dorian, the flighty, pharmaceutically challenged (or "buggy" as they call it) visionary played by Todd Jefferson Moore. The events concerning the break up are the core material of most of the flashbacks, and although the matter may initially seem extraneous to the fate of Lazara, you can rest assured that all the 'strings' neatly end up in the same knot at the end.
It is this crescendo of an ending scene that captivated the audience after the play. Rigorous debate ensued about a choice three members were faced with, and canvas opinion as I did, I stood as a lone voice in wishing events had turned out differently. The producer of OFFSTAGE!, our podcast, and the audience were almost unanimously of a different view, though I did find an ally among the cast. Opus is a magnificently crafted octave of theatre. Well worth the visit. Well worth the money. Well done Michael Hollinger. Opus runs from October 30 - December 6 in the Leo K Theater. You can buy tickets by calling the box office on (206) 443-2222 or by visiting http://www.seattlerep.org/Tickets/?prod=2535.
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