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The Autumn Garden
There’s time aplenty for Hellman’s motley crew of over-the-hill Southern aristocrats to wallow in regret. The cooped-up gaggle of practical strangers gets nearly three hours to wander through a once-affluent boardinghouse, hashing out antipathies bred by mismatched marriages, solitary singlehood and general nostalgia for pre–WWII.
Swift subjects Hellman’s already slow-paced tale to a markedly motionless first act. As just one example: Swift relegates a lengthy private meeting between two central players, betrothed youths Frederick and Sophie, to a claustrophobic divan plopped awkwardly far stage right. Solid acting might compensate for such static staging, but Eclipse’s actors share a surprising proclivity for amateurish missteps: lines delivered sotto voce as the actor stares upstage.
Circumstances improve in a second-act about-face. Bounding past expository scene-setting, Hellman’s script delves deep into the knotty relationships of these sour Southerners. Eclipse’s cast responds with gusto, easing surprisingly well into full-bodied performances. Several actors evolve with particular flair. As housekeeper Constance, Millie Hurley sheds an awkward, shticky sidekick routine—replete with bumbling punchlines and a hackneyed near-pratfall—and morphs into an endearingly unassuming matron, who grapples earnestly with the loneliness of perpetual spinsterhood. Yet more credit for the second act’s surge in chutzpah goes to Julie Daley, whose portrayal of boardinghouse denizen and resident New Yorker Nina adds a welcome charge of citified energy.
Once Eclipse’s actors sink their teeth in, they never let go. But a second-act upswing doesn’t quite sustain itself through the third act’s close. Three hours into Hellman’s oppressive oeuvre, the theater exits start to look inviting.
