Charlene Baldridge | Uptown News
So much changes. So much stays the same. That is especially true of J. B. Priestley’s 1937 “Time and the Conways,” beautifully produced at the Old Globe Theatre through May 4.
The first and final acts of the ten-character play are set in 1919, just following World War I. The middle act takes place in 1937, on the brink of World War II. Mother Conway’s body and the trembling of her hands are evidence of time’s passing; so is the darkening of upholstery as well as darkening of attitudes among her children: One is dead and the others have failed to achieve their youthful promise, romantic or artistic, and the dreams they held in 1919 did not materialize. Furthermore, just like hope, money for upkeep of Mrs. Conway and the family estate has dwindled until the situation is dire.
To know all this, to see how decisions made in Act I affect everyone and everything in Act II, and then to return to 1919 aware of what will befall, provides a devastating yet somehow wistful view of life and time. The play was written by Priestly, a literary master, (1894 – 1984), influenced by J. W. Dunne’s book, “An Experiment with Time” and the poet Robert Blake.
The experience is delivered by a young director, Rebecca Taichman, who sets it jewel-like in a production that features astonishing visual concepts by scenic designer Neil Patel, costume designer David Israel Raynoso, and lighting designer Scott Zielinski, all interconnected by Matt Hubbs’ subtle sound design, which contrasts post-war optimism and youth with the deflation of midlife and deluded old age. As said by Kay, the dreamer/aspiring writer among the Conway progeny, “Just as if — now and then — we could see — round the corner — into the future.”
The play opens on Kay’s 21st birthday and all the siblings are “off-stage” in a room to the side of the party, creating a three-act charade as entertainment, and pulling costumes, mustaches and wigs from their widowed mother’s trunk.
Mrs. Conway (Kim Martin-Cotten) is former amateur-level actor/singer and a master manipulator. Kay (Amanda Quaid) is an aspiring novelist who’s already torn up her first “putrid” book. The others are Carol, the youngest (Leanne Agmom); Hazel, the family beauty (Rose Hemingway); Madge, a teacher and socialist (Morgan Hallett); Alan, a shy, quiet clerk who stammers (Jonathan Fielding); and Robin, just demobilized from military service (Lee Aaron Rosen). Other characters are the family solicitor, Gerald (Leo Marks); Joan, Hazel’s best friend (Sarah Manton); and Gerald’s friend, Ernest Beevers (Max Gordon Moore), who seeks entre to the family by marriage.
The production of this work calls us back to a theatrical era in which we had the time and patience to indulge a piece so full of characters and convolution and rife with subtlety and elegance. Bravo to the Globe for helping us to remember what we have lost.
