Dream of a Common Language

The title of McDonald’s 1992 play comes from the poet Adrienne Rich. That might lead you to expect this Dream to be focused eloquently on feminist concerns, and you’d be right. You might also expect it to have a kind of retro ’70s aura, and the loosely organized fable of sisterly consciousness-raising would again prove you correct. McDonald chooses a swatch of art history for her subject: the Parisian Salons des Refuses, which offered an outlet for rebellious Impressionists but had less room for female painters, with works by men making up more than 90 percent of the exhibitions. The piece dramatizes this disparity by imagining a planning dinner at which the women artists are relegated to the garden.

A seat at the table, or a table of their own? The dilemma Clovis (Hardin), Pola (Janson) and Dolores (Hayley L. Rice) face still has undeniable relevance and just as undeniably suffers from its flat-footed presentation. The three bond over stories of male indifference and games remembered from girlhood, sharing so openly and quaffing wine so exuberantly it’s hard to believe a road trip doesn’t break out. Given the script’s forays into quasi-poetry and myriad odd digressions, it would take a stronger hand than Prologue has mustered to keep the play focused on the complex issues at its core. Elegant shadow puppets complement the action for a while, then drift off like the curious subplot in which Clovis’s husband, Victor (Krystosek), writes love letters on Dolores’s behalf. Of the dedicated young cast, Janson makes the sharpest impression as the nonconformist who arrives without a man and with a bicycle.

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