The Third Story

The Third StoryBefore the performance even begins, an announcement, huskily voiced by Kathleen Turner, informs the audience dryly that if cell phones are not turned off, more than one gunshot will be fired during the performance. The good news is the audience members chuckled obligingly upon hearing the announcement. The bad news is that’s the most they laughed during the performance of The Third Story a sprawling, larger than life production of three different plays that strains its script to the breaking point, while some members of this cast of truly talented actors who are barely given enough to do onstage.The script, written by Charles Busch, who also stars in the production in multiple roles, consists of three different stories that eventually tie together into one. Peg (Kathleen Turner), is a screenwriter fleeing from Hollywood to visit her son Drew (Jonathan Walker) and convince him to return to Hollywood with her. Amidst his protests that he enjoys being a mailman and does not want to write anymore, the two concoct a sci-fi, gangster story, which also includes a fairy tale Peg frequently entertained Drew with when he was a child.It is not a coincidence that all of the stories somehow include overbearing mothers and stifled, smothered children. As is revealed through dialogue between Peg and Drew, he was raised without a father, and Peg was more than a bit domineering throughout his childhood. That is painfully ironic, as the audience watches she who claimed she never needed a man depending on her son, as she will haltingly admit, needing him to help her get by. The issues the two are grappling with – dependency, struggles for independence, and desire to achieve – clearly manifest themselves as their story slowly develops.It is during the fictional story that the cast is given more opportunity to flex their acting muscles. As Dr. Constance Hudson, Jennifer Van Dyck maintains the delicate balance between camp and gravity, which was also achieved in the superb production of The 39 Steps that opened on Broadway last season. Her sleek beauty and polished voice, combined with stately turns of the head and narrowing of the eyes are reminiscent of the femme fatales of the 1940s and fifties. As Hudson’s lab creature Zygote, Scott Parkinson puts forth a heroic effort, resembling something like Igor from the Frankenstein stories, and he clearly gives his role a heroic amount of energy. It is sad that his energy has to be directed towards jokes about flatulence. After all, this isn’t Shrek,. Bush plays three and a half roles as Queenie Bartlett, the Mama Rose of gangs, her clone, and Baba Yaga, an old, fairy tale sorceress. Sarah Rafferty makes an amiable Princess Vasalisa as well as an entertaining Verna in the sci-fi gangster story.As an actor, Busch is impressive and entertaining, giving the role of Queenie a wide-eyed flair as well as masculine claim to the center of the stage. He is even more amusing as Queenie’s clone, who possesses a comedic, childlike clumsiness. After viewing him act in one of his own plays, this critic believes he would be better off pursuing a career in acting, perhaps joining Turner, who, although a first-rate actress, is given very little to work with here. She works gamely with what she is given (even if too much of it is mischievously adolescent double-entendres), but this critic, who had the pleasure of seeing her in the recent Broadway revival of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? was frustrated at witnessing such a first-rate actress in a role that asks so little of her.Aside from a brief turn as Dr. Hudson’s sidekick, Turner remains in the non-fictional narrative of Peg and Drew, which is the least suspenseful and entertaining story in the production. Lost in the shuffle of simply too much happening onstage, the story of the mother and son loses clarity and eventually becomes what it was spoofing. It is a sad thing to witness a story of great potential stumble and become something without focus or effect.The title of the play refers to Busch’s (and Peg’s) belief that it is the third time a draft is revised that everything clicks into place and the story really begins to come together. Perhaps another revision of the script was necessary before bringing this show to the stage.