Flight of the Monarch by Jim Frangione
Soars at Shakespeare & Company
By: Charles Giuliano - Aug 10, 2024
Flight of the Monarch
by Jim Frangione
Directed by Judy Braha
Set, Patrick Brennan; Costumes; Christina Beam; Lighting, James Bilnoski; Sound, Rachel Harrison
Shakespeare & Company, presented in association with Great Barrington Public Theater Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre, Shakespeare & Company, 70 Kemble St., Lenox
Through Aug. 25
Flight of the Monarch, a two-hander, is the first play of Jim Frangione, the artistic director of Great Barrington Public Theatre. The director, Judy Braha, also of that company, was involved in the numerous drafts of a compellingly fresh and vivid new play.
It is being produced on the intimate Elayne P. Bernstein stage of Shakespeare & Company. Allyn Burrows, the artistic director of S&Co., with superb style and finesse, performs the role of the Cape Cod fisherman, Thomas Callaghan. His older sister, Shelia, is played by the masterful Corinna May who is readily familiar to Berkshire audiences.
She has suffered another incident and is under psychiatric observation. The set by Patrick Brennan has her in a hospital bed. It has taken some effort for him to arrive in something of a tizzy. He had to confirm ID that he was on the visitor’s list and pass through a metal detector.
Is she incarcerated he inquires? “Do you see any bars on the windows” she retorts. It takes persistence to learn what she is doing there. It appears that she is under observation with pending charges that are not to be taken lightly.
No staff are visible but she quips that she’s under the care of the sadistic Nurse Ratched of One Flew Over Cuckoo’s Nest.
The siblings are close having shared a horrendous childhood. Their mother, a drunk, was a mean spirited, unloving woman. The father long ago abandoned them. Through Facebook, however, Thomas has unearthed him living in Vermont. She is appalled to learn of this reconnection, and since he is essentially a ludite, curious as to how he managed to communicate. The answer “Instagram” gets a laugh from the audience.
Although the circumstances are grave there is a lot of much appreciated humor in this drama. Borrows is often charming, whimsical and inventive. This is particularly the case as he offers many richly detailed anecdotes of the rigor and danger of a fisherman’s life.
This is conveyed with a stunningly authentic Cape Cod accent. Knowing that area well I enjoyed the many landmarks of land and sea that he discusses. The playwright, Frangione, a native of the Cape, with authentic colorful dialogue is writing about what he knows.
Thomas used to crew with a skipper he trusted that dragged for scallops in a desolate area of deep water. If something happened they were too far at sea for rescue by cutter or chopper from Provincetown. With chilling detail he speaks of being on watch at night while the crew caroused below deck. Should one be swept over the sound of the winch would snuff any hope of rescue.
It’s now spring and time for his one-man vessel, Queen, to get a fresh coat of paint and a tuneup. He will resume safer, but less profitable, day sailing no more than 50 miles off shore.
It is also time to tend to the garden which is a shared interest of the siblings. Mentioning specific species she is intent on preparing for the return of the endangered Monarch butterflies. It takes four generations to complete their remarkable round trip migrations from Latin America. Last season she spotted just six of them. Their plight of flight is the metaphor for the play.
Much of the first act entails digging into back story and how the heck she ended up, yet again, in the loonie bin. With resistance she finally comes clean with many comic asides. It seems there was an incident in the parking lot of JC Penney.
She just wanted to run in for a quick errand. Ignoring signage, she parked in an area restricted to mothers and their children. She goes off on friggin signs that have no legal basis. A mother chews her out. There are words and Shelia slams a shopping cart into her car.
“You know how you can never get a cop when you need one,” she exclaims. One showed up in a flash. “There must be a donut shop right by” she quips. In a polite and friendly manner he asks what happened and why?
“I popped him one” she bursts out sending hilarious ripples through the audience. Aghast he processes that she had assaulted a cop which means she is in serious doodoo.
Details of the back story unravel. Just as she and her mother were estranged her daughter, Mia, lives in Oregon and is not on speaking terms. They have another sister who leads her own life. Then there is Mom. With harrowing trauma he found her in the basement hanging from a rafter. Now it appears Shelia seeks his help to end her own life. She has been given the prognosis of what sounds like dementia. It’s a future she has no interest in enduring.
A bit of the mystic enters the narrative. She is a student of astrology while he, improbably, visited a psychic. He has visions of Mom. She came to him in the garden as a Monarch butterfly.
The second act catapults forward in her disheveled home. He has the key and arrived to snoop around. That includes finding and hiding a letter. A spoiler, we won’t reveal the content.
Arriving home with groceries she angrily wants to know what he is doing there. She is intent that he sign documents to take care of her meager estate. She prevails on him to assist in her journey. Where are you going he asked? The answer is crossing the River Styx.
Then the phone rings changing everything. What happens from there needs more work particularly the abrupt ending. For a first attempt, however, Frangione is a promising playwright with a great gift for dialogue. On every level this was a delightful performance. The director, Braha, evoked the best from two superbly trained classical actors, Burrows and May, seen here in vernacular form.