Force of Nature (review)

Force of Nature. By Steven Dietz. Milwaukee Repertory Theatre. 1 May 1999.

Tensions between head and heart, between nature's rhythms and human attempts to orchestrate them, and between the written word and live performance may never lose their appeal for artists. Based on Goethe's Elective Affinities (1809), Steven Dietz's Force of Nature engages all three tensions. In its premiere at the Milwaukee Repertory Theatre, the effort seemed to lose sight of the most compelling dynamics of Goethe: a study of destructive passion and a testament to nature's power to overwhelm human design. However, director Joseph Hanreddy subtly sidestepped not only the script's liabilities, but also the potential pitfalls of his own production concept.

Elective Affinities offers an unflattering portrait of a man obsessed with the notion of being in love. The story, set in nineteenth-century Germany, revolves around Eduard and his wife Charlotte who open their home to his friend, the Captain, and her young niece Ottilie. All four toy with loyalties and affections. While the others realize at what point extramarital entanglements become destructive self-indulgence, Eduard proves unable to detach himself, which perpetuates chaos. The power of misdirected passion emerged in the one moment of physical intimacy between Eduard and Charlotte. They took one another, but only as substitutes for their true loves. The raw hunger of their embrace stood in stark contrast to the controlled restraint displayed in other scenes.

Hanreddy cast the production well in terms of physical type. Andrew May's boyish charm as Eduard was complimented by the more rugged masculine appearance of James Pickering as the [Begin Page 131] Captain. Laura Gordon evinced stately sophistication as Charlotte, and it would have been difficult to find an actress with more nubile innocence than Kirsten Potter as Ottilie. Type aside, characterization did not always uphold the distinctions necessary to understand the plot. May, Gordon, and Pickering each acted with such polite restraint that their characters seemed nearly interchangeable at times.

Scenes framing the main action, however, helped minimize confusion. Set in a present-day park, these scenes use contemporary counterparts for the characters, Ed (Andrew May) for Eduard and Charlotte (Laura Gordon) for her namesake, managing to set Ed adrift between extremes. In the first of these scenes, Ed finds fascination in a book insisting that every person has one true love. While such fascination might indicate discontentment in his marriage, Charlotte feels no threat, portraying mature detachment in her response to her husband's preoccupation. Meanwhile, the couple's daughter (played by Deborah Staples) prattles on in "valley talk" about her new boyfriend, Nick (Brian Vaughn), before the two collapse on the ground in a decidedly tacky public display of passion. Unable to identify with either the extreme giddiness of the young couple or his aloof wife, Ed retreats to a dream world, transporting the scene to a nineteenth-century German countryside. When the action returns to the present day at the play's end, Ed's fantasy becomes so overwhelming that, for him alone, Ottilie materializes. She appears, not through a counterpart, but as a phantom from the play's alternate reality. Standing reading over Ed's shoulder, she is granted admission to his private world which is withheld from others. The complacent contentment projected here finally sets the protagonist apart from his companions.

Another device helping define Eduard's singular experience recurs throughout the main action of the play. May captures the character's longing as he gazes up at the bare back of a woman dressing by a window. Her size, coloring, and hair all evoke Ottilie. Anticipation builds for the moment at which she might turn full front. When that moment arrives, however, the face of a stranger comes into focus, very deftly communicating the sting of deception. From the retrospect of the play's final scene, this moment has added meaning: Ed's fantasy of Ottilie reading over his shoulder is an illusion as potentially disarming as his counterpart's fascination with the...