‘Stories’ is a thought-provoking play
“Writing is easy,” once said author Gene Fowler, “all you do is stare at a blank piece of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead.”
The gathered wits at New York City’s long-ago Algonquin Hotel Round Table often sparred about where ideas came from or where themes were born or topics hatched. Charter member Robert Benchley— along with the likes of Dorothy Parker and George S. Kaufman — nearly gave up the art: “It took me 15 years to discover that I had no talent for writing,” he said. “But by that time, I couldn’t give it up because I was too famous.”
Theodore (Teddy) White, chronicler of American presidents, always scanned his notes several times and retired to bed, to rise in the morning with ideas sorted out. White swore that this method always worked.
The American poet and novelist Robert Penn Warren said that, when writer’s block struck, he would climb out on his roof and wait for inspiration. This technique is not recommended for use during Buffalo winters.
There’s a great deal of discussion about writers and writing in David Margulies’ fine, quiet and articulate play, “Collected Stories.” Some of the talk is lighthearted, much of it is serious and thought-provoking. The intrepid Jewish Repertory Theatre has just opened the play in Road Less Traveled Theatre, inside the Market Arcade complex, with Saul Elkin directing the estimable doyenne, Rosalind Cramer, and the acclaimed, poised and smashing young ingenue, Kelly Jakiel.
“Collected Stories” takes place over six years, 1990-96, mostly in the apartment of Ruth Steiner, an aging, published and revered professor of fiction writing at Columbia University. Ruth is cranky and demanding but still sharp. She takes on the naive Lisa Morrison as a tutorial student. They initially clash but soon bond, Ruth forever expounding—we hear casual references to friends E. L. Doctorow and, later, Saul Bellow — Lisa intimidated even while learning and soaking up literary asides and insider stuff about academe.
Ruth, regaling and recalling, tells Lisa about an affair — some 40 years ago — with an unfaithful poet. There are lots of details, secrets. That would be a sensational book, thinks Lisa. No, says Ruth: “Those are my stories.”
Well, so much for surprises in “Collected Stories.” It’s only a matter of time before Lisa, her lessons learned well — including Ruth’s advice to “get your stories wherever you can”—becomes the darling of her generation with her first novel, “Miriam,” about a 22-year-old Jewish girl and her cad of a poet lover. Ruth is enraged, hurt and betrayed. Lisa, in control now — a cagey bit of role reversal by playwright Margulies — is astonished at Ruth’s anger, and she walks out the door no longer the sweet young graduate admirer.
And so, honor and loyalty are explored through the play’s bright, quick and real dialogue — perhaps too much of it. Elkin excels at these stories of retort and riposte; he’s always at home with the exchange of ideas, and he has an uncanny sense of pace and a deft eye for casting: Cramer is superb, every inch the “feisty old woman who cracks wise,” as Ruth describes herself. Every Cramer walk across a room is a study in movement, and props are her friends. Jakiel, fresh from an acclaimed staged reading with Alec Baldwin, masterfully goes from sycophant to manipulator; she’s a wonderful new talent.
There’s a clean and crisp apartment set by a designing team, “Koscielniak & O’Donnell.” Neat, organized bookshelves. Those things don’t seem to go with Ruth’s chaotic desk and increasingly odd attire.
The late James Baldwin said that you can only write what you know — your own experience, the last drop of it, sweet or bitter. “Collected Stories,” and new novelist Lisa Morrison, puts that theory to the test.
Theater Review
“Collected Stories”
★★★ 1/2
Drama presented through June 21 by Jewish Repertory Theatre in Road Less Traveled Theatre, Market Arcade Film and Arts Centre, 639 Main St. For more information, call 688-4114, Ext. 391, or visit www.jewishrepertorytheatre.com.
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