The All-Nighter

REVIEW | FRANKIE AND JOHNNY IN THE CLAIR DE LUNE

By Richard Martin

Frankie and Johnny were lovers, goes the old song. There were many versions, all of which bore out in the grimmest way Shakespeare’s observation that the course of true love never did run smooth.

But how things develop with “Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune,” Terrence McNally’s romantic comedy now playing at New Rep’s Black Box Theater, is only vaguely connected to the song, although Johnny (Robert Pemberton) feels the romance of its legend, perhaps having forgotten the outcome. A short-order cook on his first date with Frankie (Anne Gottlieb), the waitress he’s been working with, Johnny sees destiny in their names.

Still, he’s leaving nothing to chance. From the moment we see them – well, actually we hear them for a while first – feverishly coupling on a pullout couch that has instantly turned Frankie’s living room into her bedroom, Johnny is on the move. In the space of however long their afterglow lasts – and it’s not that long – Johnny has pledged his undying love to Frankie, proposed marriage, and envisioned a modest-sized family. To which a completely perplexed Frankie wonders, “What ever happened to a second date?”

But for Johnny, there’s a sense of urgency, not for sex, although that’s never very far from center stage, literally and figuratively, but for Connection with another human being, a bond of intimacy, which he holds is much harder to achieve than what two people do in bed. So begins the quest for which Johnny is determined not simply to enter into the dance of courtship, but to launch an all-night campaign for Frankie’s heart.

Frankie is so panicked by all this that she tells Johnny to leave. It’s not simply that she prefers the slow getting-to-know-you, getting-to-know-all-about-you approach. It’s that she’s had such pain and disappointment in relationships that she’s reluctant to move beyond sex.

Where Johnny longs to find love before it’s too late, Frankie is afraid it’s already too late. The truth is that they both desperately want the same thing, but they don’t think in the same way or have the same openness to emotional risk. As their night plays out, it is often contentious, relieved by some tender moments, occasional humor, Debussy’s Clair de Lune playing softly on the radio, and the night sky’s clair de lune streaming through the window.

McNally wrote “Frankie and Johnny” in the 1980s, at a time when friends were dying of AIDS and many others were deciding to forgo intimate connections. AIDS and its tragic losses do not play a part in the play, but McNally seems to be grieving the decline of close relationships, as if large parts of society had written and produced “Intimacy Lost”. Perhaps he envisioned “Frankie and Johnny” as “Intimacy Regained”.

But if a play is to stand on its own merits, a question that must be asked here is whether such intimacy can be reached in a single night, particularly when at least one person resists the idea. If the dialog had more gradually moved Johnny to appreciate Frankie’s reluctance, it might have made the possibility more convincing. But at times the doggedness of Johnny’s pursuit seems overpowering.

Ms. Gottlieb and Mr. Pemberton immerse themselves in their roles. Only the once or twice that Johnny was moved to tears was he not quite convincing. And despite spending some of their time naked in front of an audience that is close enough to make the fourth wall disappear, the actors are completely without self-consciousness.

The single set, a low-rent, one-room New York apartment that barely qualifies as a studio and can be appreciated only by somebody who’s been inside one, is the brilliant creation of scenic designer Erik Diaz. Its moody, gray-blue hues are deepened by the subdued lighting designed by Chris Brusberg, who lets us see by the light of the moon.

It’s here that Frankie and Johnny are lovers. But is it love?