The Pavilion

The Pavilion: Time Well Spent

Running Time: 2 hrs

There is something unforgiving about the cold, blank face of a clock. Time waits for no one, weeps for no one, and sometimes marches forward before one can be completely sure that he's making the right choice. Zachary Scott Theatre Center's production of The Pavilion, by L.A.-based playwright Craig Wright, is a powerful tribute to time's ruthlessness, its elusiveness, and its inevitable one-way trajectory ever forward -- and never back. The production masterfully explores not only what time steals from us in its procession, but the unanticipated mercies it bestows to those who can accept its unidirectional flow.

The play unfolds, with the help of an Our Town-esque narrator, at a 20-year high school reunion in tiny Pine City, Minn., in an old dance hall (the Pavilion) whose destruction is imminent. Peter and Kari, two high school sweethearts once separated by a tragedy, find themselves face-to-face to deal with the fallout of their history. Playwright Wright wields poetic, rich (but not dense) language to paint context and pose vital questions in the play, through the Narrator. He then shifts to amazingly natural and often witty dialogue in the exchanges involving Peter and Kari, with a few stunningly poetic lines showcased like jewels among the realistic banter.

Director Dave Steakley has assembled three outstanding Austin actors to bring to life this bittersweet drama. Robert Newell is subtle, funny, and refreshingly real in his portrayal of Peter, a psychologist with commitment issues and a blinding torch still burning for his first love. The ever-beautiful Meredith McCall, as Kari, glints with fury and sorrow over a hurt sustained 20 years ago and still not forgiven. Kari's pain is bone-crushing in some scenes, yet due to Steakley's skill, the viewer is able to maintain empathy for a regretful, desperate Peter. Everyone is lost, after all, the Narrator reminds us, and vulnerable to the damage time's erosion creates.

Barbara Chisholm is mind-reeling in her depiction not only of the calm, unperturbable Narrator, but also of more than 40(!) supporting roles: men, women, the chief of police, the stoner mayor, et al. The Narrator and these other myriad characters provide the essential fulcrums to Kari and Peter's conflict; they help pull the whole truth out of these two, bit by bit. Chisholm is an especially good choice for this task; her unique blend of sincerity, comic timing, and tractor-beam charisma pulls the viewer in and focuses him/her tightly on the unfolding facts.

Michael Raiford's zen-like set, which features 3,000 pounds of rice as groundcover representing the "sands" of time in a round, clocklike sandbox, is beautiful in its simplicity, although perhaps a bit obvious in its conception. In the first act, the performers' ability to walk gracefully and surefootedly is hindered by this surface, their stuttered steps faltering and unbalanced, mired as their characters are in the quicksand of their histories. The set, along with a lighting palate replete with lush blues designed by Jason Amato, unpretentiously offers only suggestions of a setting whose details we can easily imagine. Chisholm's walking the edge of the sandbox, however, was anxiety-provoking; it's a mighty thin ledge, and I found myself wondering more than once if she would misstep -- an unwelcome tension.

The second act of the script seems rougher than the first, with a self-referential stepping-out of the play's world that does not seem fully integrated into the fabric of the piece. Nevertheless, Steakley and his cast handle this wrinkle with grace, attempting to knead it into the rest of the action with their characteristic humor and sincerity. My evening at The Pavilion, pondering time's ability to widen chasms as well as heal wounds, was time well spent.