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| L-R: Liba Vaynberg and Craig Wesley Divino in ROUND TABLE. Photo by Carol Rosegg. |
We really can’t know for sure who other people truly
are. Indeed, we really can’t even know
who we ourselves truly are. Or at least
that’s the main message I took away from Round
Table by Liba Vaynberg, the intricately structured thought-provoking play currently
premiering at 59E59 Theaters on East 59th Street in midtown Manhattan.
Not that the play didn’t broadcast other messages as
well. It did. For one: There’s a big difference between
love and romance. In fact, as Laura
(Liba Vaynberg) sees it, love is the very opposite of romance. In her words:
“Love’s
about like shitting in the same toilet and romance is for people who have
potpourri bowls in their bathrooms.”
For another: It may be difficult to be a feminist and
fall in love…but it’s not necessarily an insurmountable obstacle.
And for a third: The granting of informed consent is not
just a moral imperative in sexual relations; it is a necessary perquisite in
all aspects of human relations including the very acceptance of another’s love
and even the manner, timing, and scripting of one’s own demise.
* * *
Several years ago, Pamela Wolfstein (or someone writing
pseudonymously under that name) wrote a successful romance novel and the
floodgates opened. A whole slew of
writers were retained to ghost-write formulaic imitations of that singular success
story and so they did. Laura, despite
being an avowed feminist herself, was one of them, penning books with covers of
heaving bosoms under the pseudonym Pamela Wolfstein, that were sold at airports
to middle-aged soccer moms. And now, as
it turns out, Laura is the last of them, the originator of the series having
died three years ago. So is Laura now
really Pamela Wolfstein herself?
Zach (Craig Wesley Divino) has a PhD from Harvard in
Medieval Literature and currently earns his living as a teacher, writer and
consultant on the subject to video and computer game companies and to Round Table, the hit television series
based on the Arthurian legends (think Game
of Thrones). Indeed, he actually
wrote a couple of the episodes for Round
Table himself, working out the plot twists for those episodes by
participating in LARP (live action role playing) as King Arthur, as the Knight
Tristan, as the Scholar Giles, and as the Wizard Merlin. In doing so, he was joined by Lena (Sharina
Martin), a bartender in real life who may be a little in love with Zach herself
and who well may be using LARP to replace her own childhood dreams in the
fantasy role of the Sorceress Morgan. And by Jeff (Matthew Bovee), a tax
attorney in real life who role plays Arthur’s foe, Mordred, perhaps in part to help
him to repress or at least displace his own latent childhood homosexual
tendencies. But who then are Lena and
Jeff today - really?
Zach and Laura meet through online dating, which does
seem particularly appropriate for the two of them since online dating might be
viewed as a bridge between virtual reality and, well, real reality. They hit it
off but it’s not clear whether their relationship will blossom into love or
simply peter out after several nights of ice cream, sex, and romance, given the
sharp distinction Laura draws between love and romance and her own feminist
leanings.
At Zach’s urging, however, Laura eventually takes a stab
at LARP herself – role playing as the Druid Laurel and as Queen Guinevere – but
the game doesn’t come as easily to her as it does to Zack, Lena and Jeff (perhaps
because she’s simply somewhat more realistic than any of them are. So where do Zach and Laura go from
there?
Well, if they really are falling in love (and it seems
they are), and if they’re both comfortable with the need for informed consent
in all its aspects (and it seems they are), and if neither Laura’s feminism nor
Zach’s LARP represent insurmountable obstacles (and it seems they don’t), and
If Lena’s feelings for Zach aren’t a real impediment (and it seems they’re
not), then everything should be copacetic, right?
Well, maybe not.
Because we left just one thing out.
Zach is very ill – probably dying – from some mysterious mental or brain
condition and he has neglected to tell Laura anything about it.
Kay (Karl Gregory), Zach’s gay brother, is a competent
and compassionate EMT, and the most sensible and well-grounded of the
bunch. He is fully aware of Zach’s
condition and does everything in this power to be of aid to him, ensuring that
he keep his medical appointments and insistently attempting to convince him (albeit
to no avail) that he abandon his foolish devotion to LARP, which Kay perceives
as physically life-threatening in light of Zach’s condition. But if there is little that Kay can accomplish
in that realm, given Zach’s obstinacy, there is absolutely nothing at all he
can do in regard to Zach’s star-crossed relationship to Laura.
* * *
Round
Table is an intriguing theatrical production – when if sticks
to its primary plot lines involving the distinction between reality and
fantasy, the nature of the “self,” and the relationship between Zach and
Laura. But it goes off the rails
occasionally with extraneous matters. I
don’t think, for instance, that there was any point in introducing the issue of
Kay’s mild frustration with his partner’s persona. And, to mix a colorful metaphor, Lena’s
suggestion at one point that Zach might be undergoing an adult circumcision as
part of a conversion to Orthodox Judaism was just a ridiculous red herring.
* * *
The cast of five is absolutely terrific in both their
real life 21st Century parts and in their legendary Arthurian roles. Matthew Bovee as Jeff is a sensitive and
tentative tax attorney – but he also makes for a ruthless Mordred. Sharina Martin as Lena and the Sorceress
Morgan reminded me a bit of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, another female bartender
of color in real life, although Lena’s fantasies, unlike AOC’s, tended more
toward sorcery than socialism.
Karl Gregory as Kay provided the play with the solid
grounding it required as a counterweight to the fantastical doings of the other
four. And Craig Wesley Divino as Zach,
Arthur, Tristan, Merlin and Giles, was simply mesmerizing across-the-board.
But my greatest praise is reserved for Liba Vaynberg who
not only wrote the play but starred in it brilliantly as Laura, the Druid
Laurel, and Queen Guinevere. By writing
the play and then starring in it herself she provided the perfect meta-example
of what LARP, self-identification, and
the fine line between fantasy and reality are all about.
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