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Usher Nonsense Vol. 2, No. 17
RODNEY'S WIFE A new play written and directed by Richard Nelson
Featuring Jessica Chastain, Haviland Morris, Jesse Pennington, Maryann Plunkett, John
Rothman, David Strathairn
Scenic & Costume Design - Susan Hilferty,(Wicked, The Good Body) Lighting Design-
David Weiner (White Chocolate)
At Playwrights Horizons through December 19, 2004
I'm now writing an essay about actors. How they are the best most trusting people on the
planet. How, when they discover they are in a badly written play, and the directing is not helping
in the least – they stay in it and carry on. On the other hand, maybe these actors don't know this
is a badly written play. It was work-shopped up at Williamstown, and three of the six actors
where in it at that time. If that's the case, I guess they are exactly where they want to be.
Why – I cannot imagine.
Here is the story. A "B" actor is living in Italy, on location for a spaghetti western. He is not
happy. His second wife is not happy. His sister-in-law, a new widow, is not happy. His
manager is not happy. Even his newly engaged daughter is not happy. All of this unhappiness is
served up at dinner one night in an opening scene that appeared to be entirely free of blocking and
loaded with fidgeting. Actors stand and walk, sit, stand again, pick a chair, sit, stand, walk. This
is how the scenes are changed as well. Actors move chairs to the left or right, stack them, move
a table, unstack the chairs, move them again. It is a new visual torture device. The only one who
smokes cigarettes does so in the upper left corner of the stage (so as not to offend the audience
who is not supposed to be there, I guess).
No one in this production connects to anyone else. No one stands for anything. No one is
opposed to anyone. It is as if none of them really meant to be there, in the story or on that stage.
The play runs 100 minutes with no intermission. About 70 minutes in we find out what THE
PROBLEM is within this family. Rodney's wife is not what she seems to be! Zoids! Rodney's
sister reveals the wife's secret. Confrontation ensues. The wife tries to leave the room. Rodney
calls out to her, telling her not to go, and she gives what must be the worst, the very worst line, I
have ever heard in the theatre.
"I'll be right back. I have to go to the bathroom." Exit stage right.
She is gone so long that Rodney is left to flail about, and indicate pain all on his lonesome, and the
rest of us are thinking, hoping, Rodney's wife might have climbed out the window and lit out for
parts unknown. But she returns, and the play slogs along until there is no air left in the theatre.
At the end they all leave, one by one, to board two taxis to the airport. In the slow moving
confusion, though, they literally forget Rodney's wife. She is left standing on the stage
wondering aloud to us - what went wrong?
I was this close to answering her. This close.
Even bad actors don't deserve to end up like this. Deserted and left to face an audience. A very
disappointed audience.