by Tony Annicone
GAMM Theatre’s opening show of their 38th season is “Describe the Night” by Rajiv Joseph, the Obie Award winner for Best American Play. The show spans 90 years and is set in Russia, eastern Germany, and Poland. We meet real life author, Isaac Babel, a wire-journalist, and writer of fantastic tales as he wanders the countryside in 1920. He soon develops a friendship with Nikolai Yezkov, a Red Cavalry Captain who insists on fact-based unimaginative stories. Babel’s diary about Soviet history is woven through the show wonderfully.
This show details the brutality of the revolution, the Stalin purges, the wartime paranoia, and the rise of a KGB agent, Vova to supreme power. The play then jumps ahead in time to focus on this mysterious KGB agent who spies on and eventually falls in love with Urzula, a woman living in Dresden with her grandmother in 1989. The two women are trying to escape to the west as the Berlin Wall is about to fall (as well as the Soviet empire). And finally, 90 years later in 2010, a plane carrying most of the Polish government crashes in the Russian city of Smolensk. Feliks, a car rental employee witnesses this “accident” and helps journalist Mariya escape the area. The author takes us on a roller coaster ride throughout all these years as we see how the Soviets manipulate the media into controlling the facts so that they can abuse people who differ from point of view. Any opposition is dealt with harshly and with no mercy. What a timely show as Russia’s invasion into Ukraine proves they will resort to atrocities to accomplish their goals with no regard for anyone or anything. The seven performers do an incredible job with their enormous amount of dialogue and their acting is absolute perfection. What a way to open a season.
Tony Estrella brings out the best in his talented cast as they tackle these characters in this epic play. He has his performers run the gamut of emotions from friendly and comic to explosive, threatening and dangerous. There are also a lot of time jumping scenes that the audience adapts to with the places and dates projected on the set. The audience observes the paranoia in conspiracy theories, prophecies and myths that exist in the minds of those in charge of the situation. The show is performed in two acts and moves from scene to scene seamlessly. The phenomenal set is by Michael McGarty, especially impressive is when the Berlin Wall falls while the splendid period costumes are by David T. Howard.
Leading this show is Michael Liebhauser who gives a brilliant portrayal as Isaac Babel. Babel was a figure of resistance to authoritarian oppression and started out as a journalist. He wanted to assert the human spirit in people by doing it with playful wit and inexhaustible compassion. Babel tries to teach his friend, Nikolai how to tell tall tales when he first meets him. Michael handles all his scenes excellently, but the final interrogation scene rips your heart out with its tragic impact on his character and on the audience. His interactions with all the other performers are handled beautifully.
His life-long friend and future chief of secret police is played fantastically by Sean McConaghy. His explosiveness in the role of Nikolai Yezkov, rivets you to your seat. Sean as Yezkov is at first nice to Babel but after a betrayal becomes a rigid Red Army officer, treating him as a prisoner of war. This scene scares the crap out of the audience as Babel is browbeaten by Yezkov. Sean also plays the character as an elderly man in the 1989 time period and transforms himself completely. I have been reviewing Sean since he played Antonio in “Twelfth Night” at URI in 2001 which was also directed by Tony Estrella. I last reviewed him as Dr. Thomas Stockman in “A Lie Agreed Upon” at GAMM last year
Gorgeous brunette Donnla Hughes, Sean’s real-life fiancé plays Nikolai’s wife, Yevgenia. She is a psychic and believes in foreseeing the future of the Soviet empire. Babel entices her into acting out lines he has written for a play about ducks which is a commentary on Russian brutality. The character is also seen in an asylum and is pregnant later in the show after the Stalin purge. This story about ducks comes full circle later in the show. Donnla portrays Yevgenia as an older woman later and she does a marvelous job depicting her at both ages. The soup scene with leeches is frightening to behold as she and her granddaughter turn the tables on the KBG agent with comical results.
Jeff Church plays the inscrutable KGB agent, Vova. He conveys his background to the elderly Nikolai who changes the truth to fit the narrative the Communist Party wants. Vova believes the propaganda and becomes the power mad dictator we all know today. He also becomes obsessed with Urzula, a Dresden woman he meets during the fall of the Berlin Wall. The scary soup scene and the revelation who he is related to and what happens to the woman he loves is marvelously portrayed. Vova watches the twilight of Communism, and it eats away at him. Jeff does a marvelous job as the megalomanic. Pretty blonde Gabrielle McCauley makes her debut at Gamm as Urzula, who fears for her safety and that of her grandmother played by Donnla Hughes. It is a dynamic first scene as Vova questions her and explains how he has been spying on her. The many scenes become connected by Babel’s diary. I have reviewed Gabrielle in many other shows, and this is one more feather in her cap.
In 2010, we see the aftermath of the tragic plane crash of the Polish president and government members by Feliks, a car rental salesman played wonderfully by Dan Garcia. Feliks tries to assist Mariya played by Sophia Blum to escape scrutiny by the KGB. This scene opening is gangbusters between Dan and Sophia with the plane crash noise and lighting effects by Jeff Adelberg. Mariya is eventually interrogated by Vova. Later, we find out what happened to Feliks who meets Mrs. Petrovna also played by Sophia. So, for an electrifying and riveting evening of theatre to witness brilliant and outstanding acting and direction, be sure to catch “Describe the Night” at GAMM Theatre. Their website is www.gammtheatre.org Tell them Tony sent you.
DESCRIBE THE NIGHT (15 September to 9 October)
GAMM Theatre, 1245 Jefferson Boulevard, Warwick, RI
1(401)723-4266
Looking forward to my first production at the GAMM theater.