“Olive and the Bitter Herbs” provides rarity in regional theatre
Jewish Theatre Grand Rapids’ director Darius Colquitt helps us break out into a free space where an encounter with another person can be genuine, playful, even loving—and help us laugh.
“Olive and the Bitter Herbs” by Charles Busch, currently playing at Jewish Theatre Grand Rapids through June 24, is a difficult play for me to review. Difficult, because while I wasn’t especially taken by the play written by Busch, I still find myself rooting for this production.
Despite being handed a fairly uninspired situational comedy, director Darius Colquitt has managed to wring something interesting out of this story of an aging actress, her unconventional neighbors, and the ghost living in her mirror. Rather than staging “Olive” conventionally, Colquitt frames the play as a television show with a live studio audience. The set, with a blue, old-fashioned camera set up on the side, leaves the stage machinery exposed. Actors freely dance and talk with each other during scene transitions, giving the play a light, meta-theatrical feel.
Another of Colquitt’s more interesting choices is to cast the role of Wendy, normally a 50 year old white woman, as a younger black woman. Normally, Wendy is a type: helpful and demure, she exists mainly as a foil to the lead’s poisonous misanthropy. But Shavonne T. Coleman’s presence adds new dimensions to an otherwise flat character. With her around, uneventful moments positively sizzle with meaning.
When Olive, played by Lori Jacobs with equal parts acerbic wit and charm, compares herself to a Tutsi persecuted by a Hutu, it throws both characters into a new light. The very fact that Wendy waits on Olive hand and foot is strange in the original script. Here, it makes Olive seem that much more blind to her own selfishness, and makes Wendy’s emancipation at the end of the play that much more glorious.
Unfortunately, the rest of the casting is not as inspired as Coleman’s. Dave Benson and David Wood are perfectly adequate as Robert and Trey, but they lack the chemistry or physical comfort of lifelong sexual partners. Paul Arnold breezes through the role of Sylvan, but his obvious talent is wasted on a bland role. And while Colquitt has made some interesting choices that deviate from some theatrical norms, they rarely go far enough. There are genuine flashes of inspiration clearly present in the production, but too often they are set down never to be picked up again. Setting the play in a television studio is interesting, but it could have added far more dimension to the action.
In his program notes, Colquitt accepts the script’s lack of meaningful subject matter as both a challenge and an unchangeable fact. Instead, he proposes that we take his production for what it is: a light, simple comedy like “Leave it to Beaver” or “The Jeffersons.” But comedies, even poorly written ones, can have serious meaning if the comedy is taken seriously.
Laughing at our society, at ourselves, is important. It helps us break out of ourselves into a free space where an encounter with another person can be genuine, playful, even loving—which is what this play could teach us. “Olive” the production may not fulfill its director’s ambitions, but it possibly could have if it had a stronger grasp of itself. The choices were interesting ones, but what I wanted as an audience member was coherence. I wanted ideas that mattered, and were fully formed. As it was, they didn’t all tie together to a point of satisfaction, and left me feeling disappointed.
Still, I have to recommend “Olive and the Bitter Herbs,” if only because it does something interesting with a difficult script. Regional theater rarely makes choices with the energy and dedication that Darius Colquitt has here, challenging our artistic community to do more of the same. “Olive” is a worthwhile production to see if only because it is such a rarity.
And if it makes us laugh along the way? So much the better.
“Olive and the Bitter Herbs”
Jewish Theatre Grand Rapids
Playing at Spectrum Theater downtown
June 14–24
Tickets available online here.
