The question of and quest for personal dignity come through with sharp bites in the outstanding production of Paul Zindel’s The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds, with Immigrant’s Daughter Theatre in collaboration with Hart Theater Company.
Directed by Morag Shepherd, the production reinvigorates for a contemporary generation a 1965 play which some critics at the time compared its dramatic tension to another writer’s meteoric rise — Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie. This newest production continues with performances July 18-21 at the Lightree Studios (1700 South 740 West).
With astute and riveting performances by this chamber theater cast and an equally smart set design by Allen Smith which adapts nicely in its minimalistic objectives to Zindel’s specified details at the top of his script, this Marigolds production once again demonstrates why Immigrant’s Daughter Theatre has risen rapidly to become one of Utah’s most accomplished independent theater companies. Additionally, Hart Theater Company deserves to be tracked on the performing arts radar, for giving this collaboration the synergy it needed to stage a fine piece of American drama.
The play’s premise is plain: a dominating woman who is so insecure and so desperate for even a scintilla of dignity (one of Ariana Farber’s finest performances, as Beatrice) that she becomes overbearing and abusive with her two daughters: Tillie (played by Heidi Farber with excellent contouring of rushes of tension and rising and falling emotions) and Ruth (Jami Greenburg who skillfully adds the layers to round out her gradually evolving character). Tillie’s escapes from the rough realities of her life at home, through her budding interest in science. The play’s title comes from her science project, which eventually wins her top honors at her school’s science fair.
Tillie’s purposeful efforts contrast with those of her sister, Ruth, who obliges the fleeting whims of her mother, in exchange for an occasional cigarette. While threatened by Tillie’s obvious resourcefulness, Beatrice has a counterproductive bond with Ruth, who is destined to become as miserable as her mother. Ruth’s evolution on stage is significant, as she realizes that the very intellect she has teased her sister about actually can become the best ticket to emancipation. Perhaps, it might not be too late for Ruth.
Beatrice, who hopes that opening a tea shop could lift herself out from underneath the emotional and financial doldrums of her existence, reacts to Tillie’s news and interests in science, with vicious bitterness. Farber’s presence on stage orchestrates the play’s inner turbulence but also gives the audience the incredible contrasts between the mother’s unhealing vulnerabilities and the daughters’ organic bond of resilience and dignity that eventually sustains them. This extends to a pet rabbit (whose presence on stage delights the audience but also enhances the already thick dramatic tensions), which signifies the bond of survival Tillie and Ruth realize they need to withstand their mother’s relentless storm. The daughters know the path to dignity (Ruth finding it belatedly but also determined to try to emulate her sister’s capacity for dealing with their terrible life at home). Regrettably, they recognize that their mother may never discover her own path to bettering herself.
This production nails the context and background of Marigolds’ provenance, with fine intelligence. The Marigolds play is emblematic of a great number of Zindel’s works which credibly zeroed in on the realities, tensions and struggles of young adults coming of age. Zindel lived the story of Marigolds. Born in Staten Island, Zindel was a teenager in the 1950s and he never knew his father, a New York City police officer who was separated from his mother (whose middle name, incidentally, was Beatrice). Only once in a while did Zindel see his father who had a common-law wife. His mother struggled to make ends meet in raising him and his older sister. She did numerous odd jobs, including selling hot dogs on the street, working in the shipyards, serving as a hatcheck assistant and running a catering service. A licensed practical nurse, she also took in terminally Ill patients as boarders — which is created in the play with Nanny, a silent role (Vicki Pugmire). Zindel recalled that they would have to move every year, if not more often in some cases.
In college, he earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in chemistry and even took a creative writing course from Edward Albee. After a brief stint as a technical writer for a chemical company, he became a high school science teacher in the Staten Island schools, the same time when he started writing plays including Marigolds. The title was inspired by one of his chemistry students’ projects. She found an ad on the back cover of a comic book and mailed $1 to purchase flower seeds that had been exposed to gamma rays at Oak Ridge Laboratories. Another character in the play highlights the industrious nature of the students Zindel encountered during his ten years of teaching: Janice (played wonderfully by Ainslie Shepherd), as she describes her project, which involved boiling a cat carcass.
The play had regional premieres and then opened Off Broadway in New York City to enthusiastic acclaim. Among the great actors who played the role of Beatrice were Eileen Heckart, Sada Thompson and Shelley Winters. His star as a playwright rose quickly, culminating in numerous awards including the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1971. A film adaptation was released in the following year, directed by Paul Newman and featuring Joanne Woodward. The play was among five works that a jury from the American Library Association cited in 2002, when Zindel was given one of the organization’s highest awards, for his contributions to literature for young adult readers.
This newest production of Marigolds is gutsy, absorbing and kinetic and strongly recommended as an example of superb independent theater options in the Salt Lake City metropolitan area. For tickets and more information, see the Hart Theater Company website.