Theater Review—

‘The Pavilion’ And Its Cast Of Characters

Reminiscent Of A Good Keillor Yarn

By Julie Stern

WESTPORT — Craig Wright’s The Pavilion is an enjoyable play that, to this reviewer at least, brings to mind one of Garrison Keillor’s Lake Wobegon stories, complete with Keillor’s ability to reproduce a wide range of voices.

The setting is a lakeside pavilion in a small Minnesota town, at the 20th reunion of the high school class. Peter and Kari were high school lovers, voted Cutest Couple, but she got pregnant and he left town, and they never saw each other again… until this night.

Now Kari is married to the local golf pro, and works in the safe deposit vault at the bank. Peter went to graduate school and became a clinical psychologist in the city, advising people on their relationships, even as his own life is a dysfunctional mess.

What do they have to say to each other? And what about all the other people at the shindig? And is there any possibility that history could be rewritten? That Peter could undo his cowardly betrayal? That Kari might forgive him, and recognizing that she hates golf, agree to ride off into the sunrise with him?

There are some interesting conceits in this three actor play. In addition to Michael Laurence as Peter, and Tracy Middendorf as Kari, the stage is dominated by Michael Milligan. Listed in the credits as “The Narrator,” Mr Milligan performs double duty. At times, he is much like the stage manager in Our Town, ordering lights and music on command to set the scene, and delivering a quasi-philosophic dissertation on time, the universe, and the subjectivity with which we measure experience.

But in a clever tour de force, he uses body language and speech to morph into everyone else at the  party — men and women, drunks and stoners, winners and losers, the crooked mayor, the bitter police chief, the burnt out minister, the nervously bouncy hostess, and so on, each one coming up to say what people do say at these events.

The theme of the play is the conflict between happiness and time, and the question of whether we are forever bound by the bad decisions we once made, or is it possible to recreate our own universe by doing whatever we have to do, to start over and reverse our losses.

Peter comes across as a handsome, self-serving, narcissistic lout, who feels he can only be happy if he can have another chance with Kari, so why shouldn’t she leave the golf pro and come away with him?

Kari has been unhappy for much of the twenty years. She mourns the child she aborted, and has never had another one. Her life, like so many others in Pine City, is an unfulfilling rut, but at least, she tells Peter, she has her act together. She doesn’t complain.

By turns sad, funny, ruminative and nostalgic, The Pavilion (which is scheduled to be burned down by the fire department after the reunion, so that a sports stadium can be built in its place) stands for everything that fades and disappears with time: the marriages that broke up, the friends who died in car accidents, the foolish brothers who ended up in jail for armed robbery, and perhaps the baby who was never born.

(Performances conclude this weekend, with shows scheduled Friday and Saturday evening at 8 and Saturday afternoon at 4. Tickets range from $35 to $55; call 203-227-4177 for reservations and details.)