The Triangle

Issue date: 10/7/05 Section: Entertainment

The basic premise of two couples skirmishing and facing off between each others' friendship and their own marriage is nothing new. Donald Marguiles explores it with his Pulitzer prize winning play Dinner with Friends, as does Edward Albee with Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. Between Us features a wealthy suburban corporate sell-out verses an in-debt Manhattan artist. However, despite the fine line between the contrived and a new take on an already tackled concept, Flashpoint Theatre's Philadelphia premiere of Joe Hortua's drama fortunately veers toward the latter.



The show begins in the midst of a casual dinner party thrown by the wealthy Joel and Sharyl both to celebrate Joel's best college bud Carlo's marriage to Grace and to compensate for missing their wedding. Affronted with the fierce tension and the forced smiles between Joel (Keith Conallen) and Sharyl (Sara Pauley), the vanilla relationship between newlyweds Carlo (Gregg Pica) and Grace (Kate Bailey) is thrown into tumult when the couple encounters the intensely disastrous marriage of their friends. To say the least, the dinner party quickly sours into a bitter window-shattering "id dangling" nightmare descent.



Act one is set at the home of Joel and Sharyl, a large, overly-clean room in which one meager well dusted potted plant is given the sole responsibility of filling the void. Surrounded by miles of white snow and the Midwest's cold spaced out environment, Erin Lucas' sharp directing contributes to the concept of insufferable isolation by keeping Joel and Sharyl a constant distance apart. This is in comparison to the closeness of Carlo and Grace, who in the tensest of moments cling to each other as if they are about to be brutally murdered by the revelation of the word "divorce." Act one ends with the wreck of a once beautiful friendship dashed upon the rocky brink of marital disarray.



Act II begins with the unexpected and uninvited visit of Joel and Sharyl into the cozy clutter of Carlo and Grace's Manhattan apartment. In comparison to the clink of crystal wine glasses of act I, act II features the slosh of delivered milk-shakes which factor enormously into the dramatic conflict in a show off between the two couples. A small conflict over tipping ultimately exacerbates into a maelstrom of unnecessary shake deliveries. Although best friends through graduate school for photography, Carlo and Joel's inner abhorrence for the other begins to emerge through bitter truths and the inevitable crossing of lines. During act II it became evident: it isn't only the set and dramatic conflict that splits the show. The writing style seems to as well; so much in fact that both acts could be separate plays.

Continued...

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