Asolo's 'Visiting Mr. Green' proves reasons for its success
As first plays go, few writers could hope for the success of Jeff Baron’s mid-1990s "Visiting Mr. Green." It has already been translated into 23 different languages, been seen in more than 300 productions on stages from Japan to Greece to Argentina, and won "Best Play" plaudits in several countries.
So broad an audience embrace tells us something important about this comedy/drama of two lonely Jewish men living in New York City. It is accessible and tells its story simply, communicating its ultimately feel-good message of caring and acceptance in a way that touches a good many people.
Like the recently staged "Tuesdays with Morrie," with which it shares widespread popularity, "Visiting Mr. Green" has another more theatrical virtue – it provides a canvas for bravura performances, especially for its title character, an 86-year-old widower still raging at God for taking his wife of 58 years.
Here, as part of Asolo Repertory’s 50th anniversary celebration, it is fitting that "Visiting Mr. Greene" brings together two of Asolo brightest lights over the past few decades: director Howard Millman and long-time Asolo Rep actor David S. Howard.
With worthy support from New York actor Kraig Swartz as Ross, "Visiting Mr. Green" plays out in nine scenes stretched over two acts, as these two men enter into a peculiar friendship.
The bare bones of the play have to do with a series of court-mandated visits paid by 30-ish Ross Gardiner, an American Express executive, to the Upper West Side residence of one Mr. Green – a man whom he nearly injured in a traffic mishap. The action is entirely set in the apartment, and Ross and Mr. Green interact in a series of blackouts, in interlaced vignettes that trace the stages in their relationship over several months, from distrustful to conflicted to finally resolved.
To reveal more would rob the show of some of its impact, and even if most of the "secrets" are fairly predictable, "Visiting Mr. Green" delivers its emotional payoff in ways that extend far beyond the exactitudes of religious conviction, age and geography. What is offered is no less than the possibility of salvation as a species.
The show premiered at the Berkshire Theatre Festival in 1996 before going to off-Broadway for a year in New York. These two productions, starring Eli Wallach, launched its international career, and it is still one of the most frequently produced plays.
In the role of Mr. Green, Howard gives us a character of surprising veracity, who refuses to fall into the irascible, but lovable stereotype who shows up, for example, frequently in Neil Simon’s plays. Swartz interacts effectively with Howard, and even if Mr. Green is the showier role of the two, his is a light touch, nicely tempered by restraint.
Millman directs with a pace that is leisurely, natural and unforced. Once or twice, there seemed to be a lot of time spent on the numerous blackouts, with the audience waiting in the dark while costumes are being changed and the set re-dressed. But even these longish intervals have their function, allowing us to reflect on the scene.
Set design by Jeffrey Dean was perfectly evocative New York skyline, and lighting and sound by Joseph Oshry and Matthew Parker, respectively, were effective.
In playwright Jeff Baron’s own words: "They end up playing out a lot of unfinished business each has with his family … They’ve both been keeping a lot inside, and in the course of the visits, it all explodes."
The first idea for the story, we are told, came from one of Baron’s friends who volunteered to look after an elderly man. In the meantime, Baron’s grandmother needed more help living on her own, and he made regular visits to help her. After her death, Baron sat down to write his first play and the character of Mr. Green is based on his grandmother who helped raise him. The character of Ross was fashioned after himself, as Baron is a Harvard graduate who was once an American Express up-and-comer. Turning away from the corporate world, Baron wrote for television and film for several years, and in the mid-1990s turned to playwriting.