Dear James

Adapted by Sally Childs from the Novel by Jon Hassler; directed by Sally Childs.
John Hassler Theater (June 25, 2009)

The subject matter of Dear James is a bit unusual for drama: the thoughts and desires of a retired small town teacher and a retired Catholic priest. But this type of drama may have been just what the Jon Hassler had in mind when the collaboration between Sally Child’s Lyric Theater and the town of Plainview began 10 years ago. Bringing to life rich and full characters from small town Minnesota was the mark of Hassler’s fiction; the challenge for a Hassler staging is to place the complex web of relationships and generations and time into two hours on a single stage. In many ways this staging of Dear James does an extraordinary job of reducing the novel to its most important relationships: Agatha McGee’s relationship with a Catholic priest and her relationship to Staggerford, Minnesota, the town populated almost entirely by her former students or classmates.

Agatha, played by Cheryl Frarck, has found a kindred spirit in the way of a pen pal from Ireland named James. The exchange of letters between the two has forged a relationship, perhaps the most important relationship in either of the characters’ long lives. The similarities of their lives in somewhat insular, small-town Catholic communities helps to create the bond; but it is the limitations that each feels within their home life that makes the letter exchanges so important. The relationship is at a stand still at the opening of the play because Agatha unexpectedly traveled to Ireland to meet her pen pal only to discover that he is a priest. Robert Gardner’s soft brogue and gentle manner as the Irish priest are winning to both Agatha and the audience. His reason for failing to mention his vocation to Agatha is both understandable and completely inadequate. He says he never expected to meet her in person because he simply isn’t used to people picking up and traveling all over the world.

Time takes care of this withholding of information, which is one of the problems with this central relationship of the play. There is the potential for conflict over this betrayal and the potential for inner conflict over crossing the taboos of a relationship between a woman and a priest. There is also the potential for a public scandal in each of the small towns where private lives are hard to keep private. Even some of the advertising for the play suggest that this potential scandal along with Agatha’s anguish over being a companion to a priest will be central. But the play doesn’t really deal with these issues. Agatha and James meet in Rome and re-start the relationship. Later, James has an uneventful visit to Staggerford. There are no conflicts, no scandals, no personal anguish, and no drama.

The real conflict of the play is between Agatha and the town. One of Agatha’s former students, played deliciously by the scheming Coralee Grebe, finds James’ letters to Agatha which exhibit Agatha’s attitudes and opinions of the town and the townspeople. Grebe’s character broadcasts the contents of these letters, and when Agatha returns from her pilgrimage to Rome, she is met with a cold shoulder by the townspeople who feel betrayed by one of their most upstanding citizens.

The only satisfying confrontation is a delightful phone conversation between Frarck and Grebe where Frarck confronts her former student, and Grebe responds with the bold, faked innocence that she likely perfected as a student in Stagggerford’s schools. While the lack of direct conflict may disappoint a theater audience, perhaps this is the way it is, both inside and outside of a small town: problems aren’t resolved by direct conflict but by the passing of time and the placing of recent hurts and betrayals into a long perspective that life lived in one place provides. The audience is asked to accept that the town and Agatha have forgiven each other. But I’m not convinced; the long perspective can just as easily mean a long memory over a perceived wrong.

The acting in the play is very strong. I especially enjoyed Eric Knutson’s portrayal of the child-like Vietnam vet French, who, even as one of the town’s eccentrics, stands in as a representative of Staggerford. He wants to please, is easily distracted from what is important, yet is unwilling to be pushed into to doing something that he doesn’t want to do. The single set stage does a nice job of creating the different spaces where action happens. I found the screen and lighting that creates James’ study in Ireland particularly effective.

Dear James plays at the Jon Hassler Theater through July 12.

Visit the John Hassler Theater online for schedules and tickets: www.jonhasslertheater.org
Phone the Jon Hassler Theater at 507-534-2900.