"Opus": Harmony Grit

By Jack Craib, New Rep Reviewer

New Rep’s latest production, “Opus”, is a tautly strung tale of four people who comprise the fictional Grammy-winning Lazara Quartet. The entire work, ironically itself a chamber piece, takes just over ninety minutes (without an intermission) to perform. As one character states, before the work is over they will have played all the notes. How and what they play is what matters here. Violist-playwright Michael Hollinger has provided a work that seems to be based on truth and deeply felt personal experience.

As the play opens, the quartet is composed of the appropriately “high strung” first violinist Elliot (Michael Kaye), the steady cellist Carl (Bates Wilder), the supportive second violinist Alan (Shelley Bolman), and the currently missing violist with a “complicated history with chemicals”, Dorian (Benjamin Evett). By the last coda, through the use of fascinating flashbacks, the shifting musical chairs will also include violist Grace (Becky Webber). Along the way, we are exposed to a hilarious smorgasbord of shifting sexual politics, unsung heroism, vacillating group dynamics, the fluctuating nature of the balance of power, and a strong fable on the way different people interrelate and perform, both individually and as a more or less cohesive group. As ensembles go, this gathering of actors never hits a sour note. Director Jim Petosa has managed to conduct a performance that is nothing short of pitch-perfect. Attention should also be paid to the impeccable sound cues and lighting, as well as the handsome and versatile set.

The story appears at first to be an ephemeral one, told with considerable insightful humor. Ultimately, however, it leaves the viewer and listener with some very moving, involving and lasting insights. Although it covers a good deal of serious ground, touching on current issues like fidelity, honesty, divorce, sexual orientation, and loyalty, it does so with the deceptively simple touches of a maestro who understands much about the complexity of humanity. Like all great music, it motivates and inspires much deeper emotions than it might at first seem.

At one point, one of the quartet admits that in making one significant choice, they may have “settled for a little less brilliance, less spontaneity maybe, but a lot more reliability”. Happily, neither the playwright nor the production makes that mistake. As the penultimate production of New Rep’s current season, the company is surely ending on a high note.