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| L-R: John Glover, Mark Linn-Baker, Ellen Parker, Jodi Long, Jill Eikenberry, and Mark Blum in FERN HILL. Photo by Carol Rosegg. |
Fern Hill by Michael Tucker, currently enjoying
its New York City premiere at 59E59 Theaters on East 59th Street in midtown
Manhattan, is a beautifully written and brilliantly performed play about three
“artsy” couples in their golden years and the relationships that exist between
the partners in each of the three marriages:
Vincent (John Glover) is an established painter who will
be entering the hospital for hip replacement surgery in a matter of days and
who will be turning eighty in two months.
His much younger wife, Darla (Ellen Parker), is an acclaimed
photographer who is about to be honored with her first one-woman exhibition in
Vienna.
Jer (Mark Blum), is a respected writer and college
professor who is celebrating his seventieth birthday today. His wife, Sunny (Jill Eikenberry) is another
talented painter, albeit one not nearly as well established as Vincent. Together they own and reside in Fern Hill, a
farmhouse retreat outside the city.
Billy (Mark Linn-Baker) is a stoner, a foodie and a rock-and-roll
musician who will turn 60 next week. His
Asian wife, Michiko (Jodi Long), first met Billy when he was on tour years ago and
she was one of his groupies; she currently works in a college’s Fine Arts
Department.
The three couples have been close friends for years and
now are all together at Fern Hill where they are about to celebrate the milestone
birthdays for all three men: Billy’s sixtieth, Jer’s seventieth, and Vincent’s eightieth. And to consider Sunny’s proposal that they form
something of a commune and all move in together at Fern Hill to live out their
final years together.
Sunny’s idea really does make a lot of sense. Far better that they all age together and care
for one another in their twilight years than that they go off to separate retirement
or nursing homes to live out their final days among strangers or, worse yet,
become burdens on their children. Naturally,
Vincent is all for it: he is, after all, the oldest and the frailest of the
group with the shortest remaining life expectancy. And while he loves his New York loft, the area
in which it is located is rapidly becoming gentrified with “undesirable” hedge
fund types and celebrities and even one of the Kennedy kids, and he doesn’t
like that at all so he really won’t mind giving it up. And that’s reason enough for Darla, his
primary caregiver, to favor the idea as well.
And, despite their being the youngest of the three
couples, it makes particular sense for Billy and Michiko for an additional
financial reason: Billy’s band, Olly
Golly, is no longer as popular as it once was and Billy’s and Michiko’s
combined income has declined substantially (although they’re still spending as
much as ever); if they move to Fern Hill, they can sell their New York apartment
and live comfortably from the proceeds of the sale. And of course Sunny loves the idea: it was
her idea to begin with after all, she loves her friends – and maybe Jer is no
longer quite enough for her.
Jer, however, is the lone holdout. Yes, he loves his friends but he doubts that
he would love them as much if they were around all the time. More than any of the others, he values his
privacy – as well he should. For as it
turns out, Jer has been carrying on with a young, promiscuous student – which
might not fit in so well with his living a communal life with his more elderly
friends at Fern Hill.
When Jer’s adulterous affair is disclosed, Sunny is
understandably upset. She considers
throwing him out and perhaps she will.
But the issue of whether or not she throws him out is not really what drives
the play. Nor is the issue of whether or
not the six friends actually will form a commune and live together in their
final years at Fern Hill.
No, what really animates the play are the discussions
among the six friends regarding their own sex lives; the distinctions they draw
between sex and intimacy; their marriages; their own past indiscretions, shortcomings,
and prior adulterous experiences; their perceptions of how they or their
partners may have changed over the years; and their own assignments of credit
or blame for whatever failures may have occurred in their relationships.
It is all very enlightening but, as Billy put it, it is
also a kind of Rashomon experience in
which the participants each see things in a different way. So, for example, Jer sincerely blames Sunny
for his own infidelity since she stopped “adoring” him and stopped “enjoying”
their active sex lives whereas Sunny honestly believes that their sex lives had
been artificial “performances” for years and that she only stopped “adoring”
Jer when he stopped being “adorable.”
Tucker has a wonderful ear for language. Billy’s rendition of his recipe for spaghetti
and clam sauce, for example, might not be in a class with Hamlet’s soliloquy but
it is, without doubt, the most delightful exposition of a recipe for the
classic dish that I have ever heard. And Darla’s explanation of why Jer was so
easily seduced by one of his students was as sharp and succinct as it could be:
“You were the man. Men are easy, Jer. They come with a handle.”
The entire cast of Fern Hill is absolutely terrific but
two members of the cast really stood out.
Jill Eikenberry’s performance as Sunny, the betrayed and disillusioned
wife, still in love with her husband but wishing that things could just go back
to the way they were, was impeccably nuanced.
And Mark Linn-Baker was simply superb as Billy, the 60-year-old drug and
alcohol addicted Peter Pan who never really grew up and continued to live in
the past – though, all things considered, maybe that wasn’t such a bad idea
after all.
