Here's the review from the Washington Post of the show I just designed. (He doesn't mention design, but I though people might be interested anyway.).



'Rapture': Less Than The Sum of Its Nuns


By William Triplett
Special to The Washington Post
Wednesday, November 7, 2001; Page C08


How do you solve a problem like Lucrezia?

That question and many others lie at the center of "Rapture," Jeanne Marshall's new play about a musically gifted nun, currently receiving its area premiere at MetroStage in Alexandria. Though Marshall never really answers or resolves those questions or the various subplots they engender, her script certainly has the makings of a complex melodrama about machinations inside a 17th-century Italian convent.

The young Sister Lucrezia (Michelle Shupe) has a talent for composing devotional hymns, but in a style that papal authorities have declared incompatible with Catholicism. Sister Camilla (Catherine Flye), one of Lucrezia's three aunts who are also nuns at the convent, secretly arranges for a tutor to help develop her niece's promise. Camilla and her sisters have a reputation for being a little liberal, something that puts the nose of conservative and ambitious Sister Beatrice (Laura Giannarelli) severely out of joint.

For the most part "Rapture" shapes up as a war Beatrice and Camilla will fight for the soul of Lucrezia. But there's also a war for control of the convent: Someone has written an anonymous letter to Rome alleging embezzlement and sexual depravity inside the convent, prompting an investigation that has removed the abbess and left open the question of who will take over. (Beatrice is hot for the job.) But then Marshall also throws in issues of class and snobbism as well as -- late in the action -- an unconvincing crisis of conscience for Beatrice and a sudden resentment in Lucrezia over her father abandoning her as a child.

Is this about a struggle against irrational authority? About talent crushed by the untalented? Or simply about how the uglier parts of human nature can worm their way into even the greatest ideals? It's not clear: The various themes and subplots, while interrelated, never coalesce dramatically. Marshall fails to pull everything together in the end (and there are some clunkily written plot pivots, like Beatrice's convenient discovery of Lucrezia's music lessons). But the beginning and middle are rife with schemes and dreams that gain momentary resonance in director Diana Denley's simple, elegiac production.

Flye gives a moving performance as a fragile though determined woman. As one of Camilla's (real) sisters, Jennifer Mendenhall is also effective, portraying a rather street-smart nun who still believes in the power of goodness. Beatrice is the script's designated heavy, but fortunately Giannarelli restrains her performance when possible. When the character has her bout of conscience, it feels contrived, but Giannarelli almost makes you believe it.

Gary Telles' hapless and contented music tutor, brief as the role is, inserts itself into memory mostly because the performance is so impressively gentle. With few gestures and expressions he conveys the world of a middle-aged man whose own dreams long ago faded. And as Lucrezia, Shupe isn't a problem at all: She draws a clear enough portrait of a young, self-absorbed woman-girl whose talent is as much a source of pain as inspiration.

Like Lucrezia, "Rapture" shows promise in need of discipline.

Rapture, by Jeanne Marshall. Directed by Diana Denley. With Brilane Bowman, Lynn-Jane Foreman and Richard Mancini. Set, Dan Schrader; costumes, William Pucilowsky; lighting, Adam Magazine. Approximately 2 hours 15 minutes. Through Dec. 2 at MetroStage, 1201 N. Royal St., Alexandria. Call 703-548-9044.



© 2001 The Washington Post Company