Press
February 21, 2020
Review by Kevin T. Baldwin of METRMAG
A superb new adaptation of Edward Albee’s dark double-header “At Home at the Zoo” is the inaugural Providence staging of the Psych Drama Company (established 2010), specializing in immersive, experimental and psychological theater.
The production successfully combines Albee's classic, "The Zoo Story," with its prequel, "Homelife," to form a complete story of Peter (Brian Dion), Ann (Wendy Lippe), and Jerry (David Lee Vincent).
Performed in the “round,” a unique take by director Larry Segel was to have all the actors occasionally address specific lines to someone or some section of the audience so that they, for a split second, are sharing in the moment on stage.
This method works extremely effectively and the audience is engaged. The story offers a revealing look at Peter and Ann's boring marriage and their brutal, failed attempts to communicate about it.
Both Dion and Dr. Lippe have strong chemistry. Dion’s characterization of “Peter” has the added dimension of serving as a sounding board for a lot of the frustration expressed by Lippe’s “Ann” over their mundane existence and existence itself being mundane.
Dion is an accomplished actor and Lippe is masterfully at ease with much of Albee's dialogue. The tone changes dramatically when Peter goes out to the park and meets the far from mundane Jerry.
David Lee Vincent as “Jerry” is an absolute tidal wave of stress from the outset of the second act and he does not let up until the end of the show which has a startling conclusion. It is a startling performance as he handles the lion's share of the dialogue.
As he did during Act One for Ann, Peter must again serve as a sounding board for Jerry during his endless tirades, rants and monologues. However, this time, Peter slowly becomes concerned about Jerry.
Peter sits on the park bench, not sure of how to leave and begins to fear for his safety, as well he should.
In Act One, Peter must contend with Ann who frets about the lack of chaos in their marriage. She conveys that she feels that, while their marriage has been devoid of struggle, it has also become equally devoid of substance.
In Act Two, he must subsequently deal with Jerry, who is chaos incarnate.
As is the case in most of Albee’s work, this is not lighthearted fare. In fact, like his masterpiece “Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf” it is actually quite dark and unpleasant at times. But Albee’s dialogue flows exceptionally well, conversationally at times, almost like a Sondheim musical without the pleasing score.
There are no sets to speak of. A simple chair, divan and park bench are all the set pieces on the floor of the black box theatre. Segel’s lighting choices were very subtle yet poignantly utilized.
But is the psychologically compelling performances by the Psych cast which are all exemplary and make the show simply brimming with electricity. All three actors are 100 percent committed to their characters.
A signature practice of Psych Drama Company, after each performance, mental health professionals explore the themes relevant to the show during Q&A sessions.
For an inaugural show in a new location, the Psych Drama Company has certainly set the bar high and pulled out all the stops. Audiences should look forward to more from them in the coming months as they are slated to present “Stage Kiss” (at the end of May) and “God of Carnage” (come November).
Kevin T. Baldwin is a member of the American Theatre Critics Association (ATCA)
February 20, 2020
What Looks Like a Cage on an Ordinary Day - Review by: Kevin Broccoli of Motif Magazine
"You have everything in the world you want; you’ve told me about your home, and your family, and your own little zoo.” – Edward Albee, Zoo Story
In 2004, Edward Albee added a prequel to his iconic 1959 play, “The Zoo Story.” Rarely ever has a playwright been able to make such a large adjustment to a previous work so long after the original work premiered. Albee felt that the character of Peter in “The Zoo Story” needed to be expanded upon, and so he added a first act called “Homelife” and the two one-acts became “Edward Albee’s At Home at the Zoo.” The first act features Peter and his wife, Ann, trying to communicate with little success, resulting in Peter heading to Central Park with book in hand.
“Edward Albee’s At Home at the Zoo” is currently being performed at 95 Empire Street by the Psych Drama Company, who are going to be offering a three-play season from now until November, including Sarah Ruhl’s “Stage Kiss” and Yasmina Reza’s “God of Carnage.” The company’s mission is centered around giving audiences an “education on a wide range of topics in psychology by combining immersive, experiential performances with post-show discussions led by mental health professionals.” The marriage of mission and material here is a logical one, as Albee’s work is ripe for dissection, especially this one. For those who want to go for a deep dive, there are talkbacks after every single performance led by a different mental health professional.
“Homelife” is the play written more recently but placed first in the evening, and there are shades of other famous work by Albee, including “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” and “A Delicate Balance.” By this point in his career, Albee had cemented himself as the foremost authority of how rich, wordy people exist in domestic stasis. In fact, the play begins with Ann, Peter’s wife, saying “We should talk,” and boy, do they talk.
If you’re heading into a play by a playwright you already know, it’s always nice to be given a few surprises, and director Larry Segal gives us a sensible one right at the start by setting both plays in an alleyway configuration, with audiences on both sides of the action. I admit to being partial to this set-up in most situations, but here it has the added effect of, yes, immersing us in the action, but also helping the conversations in both acts feel more like engagements and confrontations than just clever banter, which can be the downfall of many Albee productions.
The second pleasant surprise is in tandem with the first — both plays are highly activated. The performances seem designed to keep the audience either amused or agape, but never bored. As Ann, Wendy Lippe thankfully sidesteps having the character be a beleaguered wife, and instead, makes her a character who passionately wants to connect to her husband. Lippe pulls out every trick in Ann’s arsenal, and when it’s clear that the relationship she so desperately wants is not going to come to fruition, her hurt is palpable. It’s a wild performance that’s both exhausting and often exhilarating to watch.
As Jerry, the terrifying stranger who approaches Peter in “Zoo Story” as he sits on a bench in the park, David Lee Vincent comes across as almost feral. The entire one-act is difficult in a way that’s immediately evident — why wouldn’t Peter just get up and leave as soon as this man makes it clear how unhinged he is? The answer is frustrating, but simple — you just need a really compelling actor to make you believe that Peter wouldn’t be willing to turn away from Jerry any more than we would. Luckily for this production, Mr. Vincent *is* very compelling. He tears at the words and the air, but with smart direction, reveals himself slowly, at first coming across as irritating but harmless, and then more sinister as the play reaches its brutal climax.
The climax itself is a hard one to pull off. In a space as small as 95 Empire, the level of precision needed to make it entirely convincing is high, and the production doesn’t quite reach that level, with the ending feeling a little too off-the-rails and over-the-top. Granted, the script at that point doesn’t lend itself to much subtlety, but somewhere in there is a balance that hopefully will develop over the course of the run. If the goal of the show was to give us an Albee with teeth bared rather than just suggested, mission accomplished, but especially in the second act, it feels as though Jerry should have a few more tricks up his sleeve.
As Peter, Brian Dion has the unenviable task of playing a mostly reactionary character, although thanks to Albee, he now has all of “Homelife” to help flesh out the dormant man on the bench we see in Act Two. Mr. Dion gives a very thoughtful performance in “Homelife,” and he’s adept at the lofty living room dialogue Albee writes so well. He’s a generous actor, who serves his co-stars well, and Peter’s discomfort in Act One as he stumbles in and out of one sexual confession after another was a highlight.
For this production, Segal has made the bold choice to have both Ann and Jerry be aware of the audience, and in such an intimate space, it’s a risk to take a play that was never intended to acknowledge the audience so boldly and lean into it in such a way, but by having Peter be always in the world of the play while the other characters step in and out of it, it seems more like carefully crafted strategy than chaotic concept. That’s just a fancy way of saying, I assumed I was going to hate the choice, and I was wrong — it works really well for this production in this space, and the actors pull it off without making anyone cringe more than a little, but if you’re not cringing while watching Albee, I’m not sure you’ve really been to the Zoo.
February 20, 2020
Review of At Home at the Zoo by Kayla Michaud of The Good 5 Cent Cigar
While opening night had only a small crowd of approximately 10 people, The Psych Drama Company invited their audience members to become immersed into the lives of a bored couple and a deranged man.
The curtain went up on their production of “At Home at the Zoo” last Thursday in AS220’s black box theater.
Written by famed playwright Edward Albee “At Home at the Zoo” has only three characters in its two acts. Something unique about this show is that Act 1 and Act 2 were written as separate plays. Albee wrote Act 2 first, while Act 1 was written years later as a prequel to the events in the second act.
The show opens with the characters Peter and Ann on stage, played by Brian Dion and Wendy Lippe. While Peter is proofreading textbooks for work, Ann comes into the living room to initiate a conversation with her husband. From there Ann confesses how bored she is in her marriage although she still loves Peter. Their dialogue and actions took the audience on a short adventure on what their lives would look like if they had more animalistic qualities.
The actors really took advantage of their performance space. The black box theater allowed them to really create a space of their own as their set was very minimalistic.
Also, in the first act Peter’s vulnerability comes through as he opens up to Ann about after all these years why he’s so gentle in bed. Together, Peter and Ann go through a rollercoaster of emotions, and Dion and Lippe excelled at portraying these emotions through their physical movements and facial expressions.
If anything carried the show, it was the acting. At some points you may not have known where the show was going or what was about to happen, but the acting consistently seemed to captivate the audience.
After Act 1, you don’t see Ann again as Peter goes to the park to continue reading his textbook. Peter’s introduction to Jerry changes the tone immensely. Jerry, played by David Lee Vincent, is full of stories that he pressures Peter into listening to. Through Jerry’s stories you learn a lot about him. He may lose you a bit now and again, but Vincent’s portrayal of Jerry was very strong. He took Jerry’s character to a new level and put his full body into the role. If you haven’t seen the show before the ending might be a surprise to you.
Directly following the performance, psychologist Lise Motherwell was invited to lead a post-show discussion about what the audience had just watched. All three actors joined in as Motherwell and the audience unraveled the psychological topics that the play covers. “At Home at the Zoo” has a lot of topics packed into it. The actors and audience seemed to find some clarity based off of the discussion that Motherwell led.
Each performance of “At Home at the Zoo” will include a post-show discussion led by a mental health professional.
Want to check out the show yourself? The rest of the performances are Feb. 20-22 at 7 p.m. and Feb. 23 at 2 p.m. Tickets can be purchased online at thepsychdramacompany.com or from as220.org.
January 2020
Interview with Wendy Lippe - Interview by Catherine Basile (AS220)
Psych Drama Company Artistic Director Wendy Lippe has been performing and acting her entire life. She grew up attending a performance art high school, and then attended a BFA program at Syracuse with a concentration in musical theater. It was only after she transferred to University of Michigan that she truly began to blossom as a performer and director, participating extensively at U Michigan. She continued to perform after moving to Boston for her psychology PhD. She found overlap between her day job as a Clinical Psychologist and her love for theater – and grew increasingly inspired by her work. “Whether [you’re] working with a patient or a character, you are trying to get inside another person’s head – what motivates them, challenges them, fears, desires…this is the same work! It just manifests differently.”
Wendy’s seminal moment came at a conference in Sicily.
What prompted you to create the Psych Drama Company?
“I was at a conference getting CEUs in Sicily- psychoanalysis & Greek tragedy. We saw Ajax and Phaedra in Greek amphitheater – a fantastic performance, outdoors in the summer – then we went to a beautiful old stone building, and psychologists gave talks and the group sat around having unbelievably rich conversations about psychology and theater and characters and psychoanalysis. I thought, where are the actors and directors? Why are just the professionals alone having this conversation? Wheels started turning. Where are the companies that have these kinds of integrative performances, with theater and psychology professionals? At this conference, I birthed the idea. I’m going to continue to perform for other companies and create my own.”
How does your work as a Clinical Psychologist inform your dramatic pieces?
It allows me to delve into the character’s psyche, so that the theater company gets people talking about their own lives and their own relationships through post-show talk backs. We get people to start thinking about their lives in ways they might not have.
Tell me a little bit about the post show discussions – are you ever surprised by what the audience members take away from a piece?
Discussions usually go on for at least an hour, and typically we can’t get audience members to leave. We have some really famous psychologists attend every production. Most post-show discussion leaders from Harvard med school. All of the names on the Psych Drama Company website are very well recognized psychologists – people who are keynote speakers at international conferences and have multiple books. We would love to expand our network to mental health professionals in the Providence area. We teach a wide array of psychological topics, encouraging the audience to reflect on their own lives, relationships. We have mental health professionals involved in the creative team – we talk about the text, consult on character arch, deal with alcoholism and mental health issues with actors trying to develop characters. The professionals can be involved in any way shape or form that they choose. The post show discussions are more obvious to the audience, but we engage experts in the field throughout the production.
Social media has given us so much, but also robbed us of a lot – that in-person time, deeper reflection. Our aim is to foster IN PERSON experiences, not just watching as spectators. Our post show discussion leaders understand our mission and engage the audience. We want these conversations to interest both mental health professionals and the community at large.
Who is your target audience? What kind of person would most enjoy your performances?
Our goal is to bring performance and art to the general public. We are interested in reaching lay people. If anything, technology is making us more impulsive, less reflective. The world is changing. The brains of young children are changing as a result of technology, and not in good ways. Our goal is to reach the community at large – can we slow time down, and [get you] out of your home and off your computer to come talk to us. Let’s all hang out and talk, experience a wonderful piece of literature with professional actors and directors and watch theater of [the same] quality you’d see in NYC, while having an experience that takes you away from the technology and into deep meaningful conversations. We’re chasing that connection experience – It’s that thing where you stay up all night having a conversation.
What prompted you to bring your performances to the city of Providence?
We travel to all different cities and look for different spaces that could suit our productions. We are an immersive, experimental theater company. We want the audience to interact and lose the 4th wall completely – no boundary between actors and audience. Netflix and Amazon are our competition. Immersive, interactive theater was something from 60s & 70s – it’s not new, but having a renaissance.
As soon as we walked into AS220, we thought, here’s a space [where we] could do some wonderful work. Here’s a very culturally sophisticated area – let’s give it a shot and do a full season.
Do the three pieces of the 2020 season (At Home at the Zoo, Stage Kiss and Gods of Carnage) share similar themes? How were these pieces chosen for this year?
The pieces of the 2020 season all share themes that I was struggling with in my own life. At first, it wasn’t apparent, but then I realized that all 3 shows explore themes of illusions in relationships, disappointment in relationships, self-deception, reflections on the nature of love, primal and civilized parts of self, and authenticity. Each show approaches these themes in very different ways.