The How and the Why by Sarah Treem

L - R Faye Viviana and Andrea Nittoli Kelly - Photos by Maria Proios

By Joe Straw

 

 

My parents divorced before I was ten years old. My four siblings and I saw my father briefly during the weekends when he would drop us off at the movies and go have a couple of beers.  My mother remarried when I was in the sixth grade. After a series of court battles, we didn’t see our father anymore. Many years later, I found out he was still alive. I Google searched his phone number and I decide to get in touch with him.  There were questions I needed answering. I stared at the phone for what must have been forty minutes, shaking at times, wondering if I was doing the right thing before I made the call. – Narrator

 

An impenetrable huge gate now fortifies the Beverly Hills Playhouse. Knocking is of little use.  Knocking creates a cavernous sound similarly like the sound of the doors in Young Frankenstein.  Knocking only complicates things. “Who’s there?” they asked, and if your answers are not satisfactory, they will not open the gate.  So it was back to the car to wait in the warmth on this chilly night. It’s a shame because mingling outside before the theatre doors open is always a pleasant pastime. Naytheless.

 

Crimson Square theatre Company presents The How and the Why by Sarah Treem and directed by Allen Barton.  Produced by Crimson Square Theatre Company in association with Beverly Hills Playhouse, and Cheshire Moon, Inc. through February 20, 2022. 

 

Rachel Hardman (Faye Viviana) stood alone.  And when I mean alone, she is alone.  Her parents were dead.  The boyfriend dropped her off where she found her way into a cold, grey, and inhospitable office.  There’s a lot to explain, a lot to overcome, to find answers that probably won’t be forthcoming, but first she wants to sit and not say anything.

 

Beginnings are usually traumatic.  Hence the opening words of “Oh, my God” spoken by Zelda Kahn (Andrea Nittoli Kelly) at their first encounter speaks volumes of what is to come. 

 

In the quiet of a professor’s office in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Zelda is willing to wait Rachel out.  Zelda has very little planned; well at least for the moment.  It’s her office, her home away from home, and she has the time. Academia and the mystery of life make life so enticing.   

 

“You are very beautiful.” – Zelda

 

“I know.” – Rachael

 

That’s odd and certainly too familiar as an icebreaker.  But, it was said.  It’s over and done with and Rachael can only look straight ahead, filled with something resembling unforgiving anger.

 

Rachel Hardman is a grad student at NYU in evolutionary biology who has recently discovered her birth parent is Professor Zelda Kahn at a Cambridge Massachusetts university. Their meeting is preceded by a phone call, possibly a dramatic intrusion, but a long expected phone call leading to the get-together.

 

Now knowing whom her mother is, Rachel’s next quest is to find the identity of her father.

 

Zelda discovers that Rachael is also an evolutionary biologist. Or, maybe she knows this already. And even though it is only 10:00 am, Zelda breaks out the celebratory champagne for just this occasion.

 

Trying to break the ice, Zelda is interrupted by a phone call.  It’s her “boyfriend” Michael, an oncologist, who is taking her to Vienna after the conference. She is rather upset by the call and loses track of their conversation.  She does this a lot during the course of their discussion.

 

Zelda wants to know about Rachel’s paper about “human menstruation.” 

 

Rachel said she submitted the paper to the National Organization of Research Biologist (NOORB) conference, of which Zelda is on the board, but the paper didn’t get the necessary votes and was rejected. Rachel calls the selection process “bullsh*t”.   

 

To veer away from a heated discussion, Zelda wants to know more about Rachel and her boyfriend, Dean. But the discussion veers back to Rachel’s work and the exigency of sharing her work with an audience of scientists.

 

Rachel describes her research and Zelda is impressed by its originality and complexity. Zelda secures a slot at the NOORB conference for Rachel. After the presentation, Rachel gets some tough questions during the question-and-answer period. In Rachel’s mind, this is disastrous, especially when she realizes that Zelda has mysteriously left the room.

 

L - R Faye Viviana and Andrea Nittoli Kelly Kelly

 

 

The How And The Why by Sarah Treem is exceptional. It is a ravishingly and mentally satisfying soul-searching quest for the truth. And, in this play, finding the truth is quixotic and inexhaustible because it is dolled out in increments. Obfuscated by a necessity to achieve success in a professional setting, neither of the characters are totally reliable reporters. They admit it themselves. They hide the truth when it is convenient and when they feel it is necessary. And with that said, Treem is marvelous at foreshadowing dialogue, giving us hints of what is to come underlying events that will be revealed in the second act.

 

Wonderfully directed by Allen Barton (author of The Oasis of Insanity: The Study and Pursuit of Acting at the Beverly Hills Playhouse – a wonderful book by the way), the play seems to be a slight variation of the published work, especially the ending that is exquisitely tender. Barton’s work seems to press all the right buttons and the emotional outpouring on this particular night validated the night.

 

Andrea Nittoli Kelly is true to form at Zelda Kahn, a professor who hits all the right notes. After all, she is the adult of the two.  She is sensible and reasonable when the discussion veers ugly and the barrage comes at breakneck speeds.  There was a slight false note when she is looking for the tissues. Most professors, without looking around, know exactly where the tissues are when graduate students come in to cry in their offices.

 

Faye Viviana is exceptional as Rachel Hardman as she rattles off her hypothesis as though she can do it in her sleep, forward and backwards too. A character choice Viviana has made seems to have the character sealed in a glass test tube. She looks forward to the fourth wall only occasionally glancing back to her counterpart with stinging requitals of abandonment without coming right out and saying it.   It is a fascinating state of loneliness and nerves, bubbling, boiling, and waiting to explode at any given moment. It is a remarkable choice and one that makes for a remarkable night.

 

Faye Viviana was also the Executive Producer of the show.

 

Other members of the crew are as follows:

 

Jeffery Sun – Stage Manager

Derrick McDaniels – Lighting Designer

Lisagaye Tomlinson – House Manager

Jessica Ott – Box Office

Mark Iverson & Whitney Nielsen – Set Building

Allen Barton & Jeffrey Sun – Sound Design

Jeffrey Sun – Graphics Design

Maria Proios – Promo Photography

V3 Productions – Marketing

Emily Chapman – Social Media

 

Donations to Crimson Square can made at www.crimsonsquare.org/support

 

Ticket information available at: www.CrimsonSquare.org