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“Collected Stories” Is a Powerful Tale

by Jana Pollack, New Rep Reviewer

In New Rep’s “Collected Stories,” a complex, intricate relationship takes shape, evolves, and explodes in an extremely intimate setting. In one wonderfully realized room, we see professor and accomplished writer Ruth Steiner (the amazing Bobbie Steinbach) and writing graduate student Lisa Morrison (the equally talented Liz Hayes) meet and get to know one another. Although the play consists only of scenes between these two women, the power balance is always shifting and the stakes are always high.

This is a common tale – student surpasses teacher – that comes freshly alive in this production. Director Bridget O’Leary, who consistently produces powerful work, has helped her actors create two unique, completely realized women. When Liz first enters, there is just one moment of worry that she is perhaps a caricature of a harried graduate student. But within a few lines of dialogue it is clear that Ms. Hayes knows Lisa in and out. Ms. Steinbach captured my attention from her very first appearance, moving her shoulders to the beat of an old jazz record as she finished working on a typewriter.

As the play continues, it raises questions about youth and aging, truth and fiction, friendship and, ultimately, ownership. Ms. Steinbach expertly removes layers, scene by scene, letting Lisa in little by little, while Ms. Hayes conversely begins to put up thin and then thicker walls. By the end, each woman appears quite changed from her initial appearance, but we can see that really these strengths and weaknesses were there all along.

The passage of time is expertly depicted by costume designer Tyler Kinney, as one woman come into herself and another struggles with letting go. Ultimately, the audience is in the difficult position of choosing a side. As an audience member, I was completely wrapped up in the moral implications of the story, and in the days since seeing the play I’ve thought a great deal about the sadness of what the relationship between Ruth and Lisa becomes. “Collected Stories” is good theater: consistently entertaining and inherently complex.

Who can collect your story?

by Frank Furnari, New Rep Reviewer

Collected Stories by Donald Margulies explores the relationship between two writers – first as a student and a mentor and later as colleagues and the tensions caused by the relationship. Lisa Morrison, a first-semester grad student rushes to visit her advisor and favorite author Ruth Steiner to discuss a writing assignment. Ruth invites Lisa into her home and Lisa is overcome by the fact she is in her idol's apartment. There’s a bit of a misunderstanding, Ruth just sees that as a regular meeting with a student that happens to be at her apartment; Lisa thinks she’s being invited as a guest into Ruth’s apartment. Lisa is nervous and intimidated – speaking in a frenzied manner. She's a young writer with a lot of potential that wants to be shaped by Ruth. Over the course of the evening, through the interactions between the two women we see her progression as a writer and the shift in their relationship. We see Lisa grow to the point where Ruth seeks Lisa's advice on new writings but then challenges her interpretation of the new piece not able to relinquish control. The play explores the relationship between teacher and student – between mentor and protégé as well as what is fair game when writing. When is it appropriate to write about stories others have told you about? It does not try to pose judgment, but rather allow the audience to decide who was in the right in this instance.

In lesser hands, this play may not be very interesting, but under the capable direction of Bridget Kathleen O'Leary and with outstanding performances by Liz Hayes (Lisa) and Bobbie Steinbach (Ruth), this play shines. Lisa evolves from a nervous, intimidated, mousy novice writer into a writer who will do what it takes to get ahead. In the first scene you see her anxiety of embarking on her graduate career – a believable portrayal. Over the next couple hours, Hayes demonstrates Lisa's growth while maintaining vulnerability - a desire to still need approval from the one woman who is unfortunately incapable of providing such support. Bobbie Steinbach inhabits Ruth at her core and is great at as the intimidating, experienced professor who can never be pleased. She commands attention and shows great depth of emotion in the role.

Upon entering the Mosesian Theater, one immediately notices the lovely apartment of Ruth Steiner, masterfully designed by Jenna McFarland Lord with properties design by Joe Stallone. The opening scene and the angles make it feel like it is on the top floor and hidden away - Ruth’s hidden sanctuary. Great detail is put into it with a wall of books, a manual typewriter, and well-worn furniture. You immediately get the impression that this is a place Ruth has lived in for years. I also give credit to the whole team for ensuring that the actors do not get lost in such a large space – while everything around adds to the production, your focus is always on the actors and their compelling story. Credit should also be given to the David Reiffel's sound design – when you enter the space, you can hear the traffic outside the apartment. Deb Sullivan's lighting design also adds texture to the production through good use of light and color.

Overall, this is a strong production with a great team all around and standout performances by both Bobbie Steinbach and Liz Hayes. The story is an interesting one and will leave you evaluating the relationship between the two women after the show.

"Collected Stories" Powerful, Intense

The set for New Rep's terrific new production of "Collected Stories" draws in the audience even before the figurative curtain rises.  Any booklover will drool over the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, the comfy leather library sofa and chair, the assembled New Yorker magazines, and the cozy oriental rugs.  (We decided we wanted to live in that apartment!)  Three cheers to Jenna McFarland Lord for set design.  Kudos also to Deb Sullivan for lighting design; in this two-character play, the lighting becomes something of a third presence, cleverly evoking the seasons, time of day, and New York skyline. 

Ultimately, however, it is the acting that astounds.  Local great Bobbie Steinbach has created such a completely real, believable, flawed, contradictory, passionate, and human character in Ruth Steiner that we left convinced we had met this person before.  Ruth is a writer and professor, a tiny, fierce, quintessential New Yorker who feels and expresses everything with such intensity that her hands tremble and she appears about to levitate at the peak of a discussion.  Steinbach's performance is so powerful that we risk siding too much with her in the eventual show-down Ruth has with her graduate student mentee, Lisa (played convincingly by Liz Hayes) -- more on this later.

Lisa is ambitious and wants to surpass her teacher (witness the prickly conversation about why Ruth never wrote a novel, for example).  The play, a terrific work by Donald Margulies, which was nominated for a Pulitzer, is ultimately about ownership of one’s story.  It evokes the danger of sharing too much, making yourself vulnerable, even while it shows us the beauty of this as well.  The work is about teachers and students, artists and acolytes, and the moment where the student begins to overtake the teacher.  But this raises a critical question: whose stories belong to whom?  Can a an “innocent ‘ unsophisticated artistic newbie appropriate an entire culture, e.g. New York artistic Jewishness, about which she has only heard?  The artistic process can devour everything in the environment, appropriating other people's lives and precious stories.  We have a hint of what Lisa can do with her art when she incorporates her father’s love life in a story and then chooses to share just that story with him, then seems puzzled by his reaction. (Ruth keeps asking her why that story and never gets a clear answer.)

Without giving away too much, suffice it to say that Lisa crosses a boundary in ways that Ruth can’t forgive. It is hard to tell if she is smart enough to know what she has done, and we're never quite sure why she did it.  The script is unclear on this point.  More conviction on the part of Hayes -- and perhaps some righteous anger or indignation in that final argument -- might have helped her explain herself better.  The final argument felt one-sided. We left the theater not sure if it was our sympathy with the older character (who is no saint, who takes advantage of the license of being an elder who can say whatever the hell she wants), the playwright’s intention, or the effect of the unequal skills of the two actresses. Haynes is skillful, but she doesn’t summon up the anger to make her an equal combatant in the final scenes. You see a flash of it when Ruth pushes her too far; we would have liked to see more.  (Though standing up to Bobbie Steinbach certainly can't be easy, we're sure.)

On the whole, this is an excellent production.  New Rep has done itself proud with this one!

~ Johanna Ettin & Shauna Shames, New Rep Reviewers

"Collected Stories" Collects Applause

New Rep's production of "Collected Stories" by Donald Margulies is a candid glimpse at the relationship between two female authors, one a venerable teacher and one a student of the craft.  The story of their friendship unfolds over 6 years and through a series of successes, misunderstandings, and confidences, creating a complex and believable bond between these two women.

Bobbie Steinbach as Ruth Steiner is masterful in her role.  She carries herself with the grace of an accomplished writer and professor, engaging the audience with her lively story-telling, her face alight with passion as she tells of her affair with the self-destructive poet Delmore Schwartz.  She is the sage professor, casting piercing looks at Lisa (Liz Hayes), who spills tea and gratingly phrases each sentence as a question.  She is the endearing grandmother who offers cookies and complements to her young protégé.  She is jealous and vehement and vulnerable, and she is completely natural and convincing in all of these roles.

Hayes creates the perfect foil to Steinbach’s confidence.  She is the fumbling, star-stricken grad student, ready to leave her mark on the writing world, but desperate for approval before she does.  While at times her mannerisms seem stilted next to Steinbach’s, her awkwardness works with her character’s struggle to impress her mentor.

The backdrop for the play is Jenna McFarland Lord’s beautiful set design.  A projector screen bathes Ruth’s Greenwich Village apartment in late afternoon sunlight, the orange sunrise dissolving into shadows over her leather couch and stacks of books.  A row of track lights above the bookcases casts the room in a warm glow, aiding the feeling of coziness for an apartment made a home for 31 years.

"Collected Stories" is both expertly acted  and stunningly set.  The play provides an intimate glimpse of the complex relationship between two women as they each evaluate their self-worth and expound on their views of the boundaries of an author.

"Collected Stories": Whose Life Is It Anyway?

by Jack Craib, New Rep Reviewer

New Rep’s production of “Collected Stories” is theatrical heaven, a miraculous melding of profound writing, superb direction and impeccable acting, resulting in the best work this company has done in a handful of seasons. Playwright Donald Margulies is perhaps best known for his 2000 Pulitzer-winning “Dinner with Friends” and the recent Broadway production of “Time Stands Still” (so fine a piece that it was revived, again on Broadway, a year after its initial run, with an incandescent Laura Linney and most of the original cast intact). “Collected Stories”, first performed off-Broadway four years earlier, and on Broadway in 2010, is unaccountably much less renowned, despite having been itself a finalist for the Pulitzer and a Drama Desk nominee as best play in 1996.

The most astonishing fact about the play is that it’s taken this long for it to appear on a local stage, apart from a production in the western part of the state a decade ago. This may be in part because its original off-Broadway run and its more recent Broadway iteration were so short-lived, while several deep-as-a-birdbath mega musicals continue to pack in adoring crowds. It may also be due to the deceptively fluid naturalism of the work; not for a moment does the dialogue seem inauthentic or inappropriate, and this can be deceptive. Without divulging too much of the plot, it can be said that elements of the play are reminiscent of “Educating Rita” (roles being gradually reversed), “All About Eve” (adulation morphing into rites of succession), and especially “Doubt” (a theatergoer left to decide for herself or himself who is a victim or a villain, and how consciously this occurs).

At the base of this work, about the collection of stories, are some rather heavy dilemmas, notably the questions of who owns a person’s life story, privacy invasion, and the inevitable march of time. Margulies complicates the moral question himself when he makes use of real facts from the life of poet Delmore Schwartz and his fictionalized portrayal in Saul Bellow’s “Humboldt’s Gift”. Thus we’re dealing with several layers of borrowed (or burgled?) narrative. While a writer is expected to write about what she or he knows, when is including someone else’s story a tribute and when it is appropriating a life?

The part of Ruth, a writer, teacher and mentor, has been played by such acting luminaries as Uta Hagen, Helen Mirren, and Linda Lavin (on stage, in a Tony-nominated performance, and in a televised version on PBS). Bobbie Steinbach, a local treasure, inhabits the role. As her student and mentee Lisa, making her New Rep debut, Liz Hayes (so memorable in the 2010 SpeakEasy Stage production of “Adding Machine: A Musical”) holds her own in this tightly wound two-hander. It’s terrific to see where their verbal virtuosity and the consistently mesmerizing direction by Bridget Kathleen O’Leary mesh. The technical aspects of the production, most notably the set by Jenna McFarland Lord and costumes by Tyler Kinney (one is tempted to call them “seamless”) also help to make this a resounding success.

Toward the end of the play, Ruth makes the decision to unbolt her door, in a reversal of sorts of a certain Ibsen play, leading to an inevitable confrontation between creative freedom and the duty to claim responsibility for one’s actions. How infrequenty these days is an audience so challenged. Theatrical heaven indeed; number this critic among the saved.