Exposing Layers of Wilson's People

Full of murder, lust, adultery, suicide, and archaeologists, Lanford Wilson's "The Mound Builders" is bound to be shocking and entertaining. But despite the promise the play seems to hold, the production in the Loeb Ex last weekend took a while to realize its full potential. But when it did, it was a rousing, if not disturbing, success.

Told in a series of flashbacks, the main action of the play takes place on an archaeological dig a year before, the slides of which Dr. August Howe (Robert Rogers) examines in the first scene. Howe spent the summer with two other archaeologists--Howe's wife Dr. Cynthia Howe (Anna C. Lewis) and his friend Dr. Dan Loggins (Nick Stoller). Dan has brought along his wife, Dr. Jean Loggins (Holly Mapes), ecstatic after recently discovering her pregnancy.

Halfway during the first act, August's eccentric, hypochondriac sister Delia Eriksen (Dana Gotleib) comes to live with them. The owner of the house in which they are all staying, the loveable and amusing backwoods hick Chad Jasker (Andrew Pitcher), is also always hanging around. Although there is obvious tension between August and Delia and obvious lust between Chad and Jean, everything is subtle. And for the most part, everyone gets along quite nicely...so nicely, in fact, that the audience is in danger of falling asleep.

In the second act, the action picks up. All the quiet tensions that had been unspoken begin to scream for attention. Secrets that August had been keeping about the mound and the next summer's dig are revealed much to the changrin of the rest of the characters. Chad learns about Jean's pregnancy, and subsequently drifts into insanity, screaming about how he and Cynthia have been sleeping together. The play concludes with Jean sobbing over Chad's murder of her husband and his own subsequent suicide. August is left sadly looking at his slides and the remnants of six shattered lives.

While the drama takes some time to get moving, the acting is moving. Rogers is not able to display the quiet vitality that the other characters had found within themselves. He tries and seems to think he is doing a good job, but August's character needed a faster pulse. Maples, on the other hand, over-played her childish enthusiasm and bubbliness, almost to the point of annoyance. Her acting simply did not fit in with that of the other characters.

Gotlieb, however, shone as a true source of comic relief as August's hypochondria sister Delia, an acclaimed author with a scandalous history. Her character was supposed to be livelier than everyone else's during her scenes, and she realized her potential without being melodramatic. Neither she nor Lewis had many spoken lines, but they never tried to overshadow their fellow cast members. They slipped into their roles with a familiarity and understanding that was not reached by anyone else in the cast. Truly, Lewis's quiet but sharp one-liners and Gotlieb's outspoken, often obnoxious punch-lines brought a great sense of relief to an otherwise melancholy show.

Out of all the character, the "Most-Improved" award has to go to Nick Stoller (Dan). At the start of the show, his character appeared to be nothing more than a one dimensional nice guv. i.e. pushover. But after an encouraging conversation with Delia and a night of drunken fishing with Chad, Dan began to show his humanist to the audience. By time everyone realized that Chad had killed him, more that a little sympathy is felt by the audience for the loss of the nicest and most humane character of the play.

Nothing, however, can evoke more sympathy for Dan than the fact that he is married to Jean (Maples). As mentioned before, she was obviously supposed to be more enthusiastic and excitable than anyone else in the play. But when Delia finally slapped her trying to end her hysterics, Most of the audience became envious and wished they could have done it themselves.

Yet the character who staves in your mind the most once you leave the theater is Chad (Pitcher). A drawling source of humor during the first act, he digresses into a crazed murdered by the end of the second. The scene in which he visibly loses his mind particularly displays both the character's dynamic force and Pritchard's versatility as an actor in one fell swoop.

The technical aspects of the show were on the whole, well done. However, the psychedelic neon on-black mural posing as the kitchen and living room walls was more than a little distracting. The characters' costumes, while simple, always fit appropriately with the action taking place around them.

All in all, the show displayed some very talented acting in a disturbing but entertaining nonetheless-talk of friendship, marriage, and betrayal of both. It took a while for the show to get past the doldrums, but the spine-chilling ending made it all worthwhile.