By Alisha Hagey and Jason Hagey
Sweetheart Come, produced by PYGmalion Theatre Company at the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center in Salt Lake City, Utah, is a very honest portrayal of life. The story takes place between August 1908 and April 1909 in Germany. It features a husband, wife, and their gardener. Together they experience life in the changing political atmosphere, the precursor to World War I. The story itself delves into the quiet everyday moments of raising a family and supporting the community. Each character is strong and relatable. If I share anymore, I will spoil the journey and give too much away.
Melissa Leilani Larson (playwright) is a refreshing gift. With Sweetheart Come, she has reimagined the ‘living room play’ to be something more and have new life. Her text takes pleasure in the mundane aspects of day to day living. It is a thoughtful and thought-provoking meditation. Larson shines when exploring the fringes, those singular moments and thoughts. She is especially good at delving into the psychology of these same small moments. Her dialogue is strong. She has these wonderful touching moments tempered with struggles and raw humanity. The humor is thoughtful, and the sorrows are real. This same honesty is felt throughout all aspects of the production.
Mark Fossen (director) takes risks and these pay off. He is good at keeping the pacing – always building at a steady tension. He embraces the subtlety of the text and celebrates the simplicities. There is a great balance between having natural characters driving the scenes while also supporting the underlying theme. Neither is more important or feels like they need precedence. This is part of the overall effectiveness of the entire evening. His blocking choices are motivated, creating solid stage pictures that feel natural in a confined space made of paper.
Thomas George (set designer) is minimalist and innovative – creating a space that is equal parts sterile (in a good way) and highly flexible; becoming a character unto itself. The set purposefully leaves itself open to audience imagination while helping to define both the physical and psychological spaces. There are a few moments where the paper walls are used to illustrate memories for Emma through shadows. The effect is beautiful and deeply engaging.
Pilar I (lighting designer), Mikal Troy Klee (soundscape design), and Andrea Benson Davenport (costume design), all help to create this dreamlike space where the tension is just underlying everything else, not giving away too much but hinting about what is to come.
Christy Summerhays (Emma Hauck) is natural, relatable, and truly vulnerable. She is a strong and intelligent woman. She doesn’t play the victim and isn’t being controlled by men or circumstances. She is out there, in her own way making choices and pushing her narrative forward. There is a lovely sense of the feminine both in strength and in history. Summerhays captures these ideas without bending to stigma. She loves her life, loves her four walls, her husband, her children, and her poetry as she herself is somewhat of an enigma as poetry in motion.
Patrick Kintz (Michael Hauck) is an ambitious character. He rides a fine line between being a supportive husband and having social ambitions. His portrayal is human, at times forceful and in the right moments, tender. There is a softness and a respect in his portrayal of events. His character seems to journey the most in the eyes of the audience. He, himself, doesn’t shy from being a dichotomy and instead becomes all the more authentic for it.
Roger Dunbar (August) is committed. He is real. No matter what is asked of him (both by the script and by the director), he does it and stays true to character. He doesn’t live in simple stereotypes but instead finds the depth of August. This is what makes you scared of him and in love with him.
All of the actors aren’t merely one thing or another. No one makes the simple choices but instead strives for a very honest performance, one that is characterized in minutia and so is ultimately so close to all of us. There is an amazing focus by all the actors, a solid example of active listening (both to each other and to their environment). This respect creates such harmony that even though this isn’t a plot-driven story, it is all at once substantive and necessary.
Truly, PYGmalion Theatre Company’s Sweetheart Come is worth your time. It is a lovely piece, both terrifying and tender. It offers an honest portrayal of life that can happen to any of us in any time period. It joys in our day to day – which is what makes it so effective a narrative. We don’t live in the big moments but rather the small and the repetitive. Never once does Sweetheart Come condemn a life lived in those confines, nor does it aggrandize or demean the desire for change. Instead, it glories in all of us and in all our hopes and dreams (big and small). Like the Bach it references, Sweetheart Come is meditative, hypnotic, and above all, consoling.
*Although the play is appropriate for all audiences, the subject matter is best suited for adults as children would likely struggle to understand all the detailed nuance of the characters and their situations.
PYGmalion Theatre Company Presents Sweetheart Come by Melissa Lelani Larson
Leona Wagner Black Box in the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center, 138 West 300 South, Salt Lake City, Utah 84101
Thursday – Sundays, May 3 – May 18, 2019
Tickets: $20
General Info: 385-468-1010, ArtTix Phone: 801-355-ARTS (2787)
PYGmalion Theatre Company Facebook Page
Parking is available on most streets within a 3-block radius of the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center, or in several pay lots near the theatre. The cost of parking for an evening’s performance ranges from $3- $7. Or park and take Trax in.
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