Tara Morice and Harriet Gordon-Anderson. Photo: Ten Alphas.
New York film composer Arky Levin’s dilemma is this: Respect his wife Lydia’s dying wishes to not visit her in her final days, or be with her at her death. An excellent moral dilemma as posited in Heather Rose’s novel of The Museum of Modern Love, adapted for the stage by Tom Holloway.
Having been presented with this problem, the action moves to MoMA where attendees have come to see Marina Abramović in The Artist is Present – a marathon feat of performance art that saw Abramović sitting silent and completely still opposite thousands of museum visitors in the spring of 2010.
Arky’s friends are at the exhibition, and there is some nicely sharp dialogue about what constitutes performance art; the overarching role of the patriarchy in all kinds of art; women as objects not artists in themselves; whether Arky (Julian Garner) has or will visit Lydia (Tara Morice); what is the value of art; and the nature of friendship. These questions and the repartée around them threaten to overshadow Arky’s to-do-or-not-to-do dilemma,
When Arky turns up to MoMA, he reluctantly allows himself to be drawn into conversation with a Texan stranger Jane (Sophie Gregg), whose honesty is at odds with many of the more pretentious gallery goers. Art teacher Jane, lonely and recently widowed, has come to the Big Apple in search of art, answers and connection. At first she is drawn to Arky and then finds him confusing and difficult.
Like Jane, I found Arky difficult, but for different reasons.
When Arky wonders who he is/who will he be without Lydia, I didn’t feel the pain of that remark. He throws himself into his work. Yes, well that happens.
Unlike many of the audience members on the night I attended, I have not read Rose’s book. Those that had seemed to get more out of the evening. In a Q & A afterwards, Garner acknowledged the difficulty in getting such a withdrawn character, whose inner dialogue is explored in the novel, onto the stage. There are some excellent moments, culminating in a scene where Arky allows himself to rage, but although he is the pivotal character in this play, I did not feel I knew him very much at all.
Lydia and Arky’s daughter Alice (an excellent and nuanced performance by Harriet Gordon-Anderson) seemed to feel the same. Two forceful parents, two opposing views, but Alice is not cowed. She knows what she will do.
The cast director Tim Jones has picked is stellar. As well as those already mentioned, there is Glenn Hazeldine, who has fun being a deaf-eared and self-important art critic. His interactions with Healayas (Jennifer Rani), an arts journalist and best friend of Arky’s wife, are intense and entertaining. As too are the scenes between Healayas and Arky, with one striving to maintain contact and the other withdrawing from it. Rani’s presence on stage brought with it vitality and authenticity, and even in her character’s darker moments, a sense of hope.
And then there is the mesmerising, almost gothic Tara Morice as Lydia. Almost an Marina Abramović herself, her Lydia – an isolated figure who has decided she wants no one to witness her decay – is an unmoving, but captivating presence for much of the play.
Because all the performances are excellent, quick credit, too, to Justin Amankwah and Aileen Huynh, who make up the cast of eight.
Of course, as well as loss, another underlying theme here is connection, and how important that is to humans of all stripes. And Covid, as we all know, has highlighted that need and isolated many.
Stephen Curtis’s stage design mimics the original The Artist is Present. A square is marked by white tape; a chair is centrally placed, in which the artist could be present. Large colour projections showing gallery attendees watching the out of sight artist are a constant (courtesy of video and sound designer David Bergman). The cast are also watchers. When not performing they are either watching from the stage edges, or projected on screen.
The final moments, again a projection of what was happening on stage are very powerful. The intensity of a gaze, watching, connecting, understanding.
But while there is much to like about The Museum of Modern Love, I left wanting more. A fuller insight into the largely unlikeable Arky’s thought processes (no matter how rational or irrational in the face of impending loss and grief); and even a little more exploration of some of the questions asked about, say, the underrepresentation of women in art. A big ask, I know, for 90 minutes of stagecraft, but reading a novel beforehand is not a prerequisite for a play. On the plus side, I am curious to read Rose’s book now.
Until 30 January 2022
Tickets $59-$69
More: https://www.seymourcentre.com/event/the-museum-of-modern-love/
