PrintWednesday July 14, 2010
Berkshire Eagle Staff
LENOX -- Shakespeare & Company s production of Gardner McKay s 1971 drama, "Sea Marks," is a good example of how intelligent directing and sensitive acting can make an inconsequential play feel consequential.
The play, which opened over the weekend in Shakespeare & Company s Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre, is about the unlikely love affair that develops between an Irish fisherman named Colm Primrose (Walton Wilson) and Timothea Stiles (Kristin Wold), an editorial assistant at a publishing house in Liverpool.
At the age of 50, Colm is beginning to wonder contemplate the unfulfilled portions of his life as a fisherman on a remote island off the coast of Ireland. Remembering Timothea, whom he met briefly, and embarrassingly, once at a wedding two years earlier, he decides to write her.
For her part, Timothea doesn t remember Colm but she is taken by his writing. They come to know each other only through their correspondence, which continues for a year and a half before they meet again, this time at the wedding of Timothea s third cousin, who lives on Colm s island.
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Timothea persuades Colm to come and stay with her in Liverpool, where the sexually inexperienced Colm (a scene in which Timothea and Colm prepare for bed on his first night in Liverpool is endearing) and Timothea begin an affair that takes on deeper meaning for them both.
When Timothea shows Colm s letters to her boss, he is taken by Colm s gift for poetry and decides to publish them, edited, in a book, "Sea Sonnets," without Colm being told beforehand. But it s the death of Colm s paternal mentor back at home that throws a huge wave of reality Colm s way. The effect on him, and his relationship with Timothea, is profound.
Wold s Timothea -- a Welsh farm girl who hides her Welsh background and accent from her peers and bosses -- is a determined, if also somewhat courageous woman who is struggling to make her personal and professional way in Liverpool.
A complicated mix of vulnerability, protectiveness and strength, Timothea knows what she wants and she wastes no time going about trying to get it.
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Where Wold s Timothea is painted in finely measured, unassuming strokes, Wilson s Colm is painted with big, bold brush strokes that are every bit as attentive to detail and color as they are to sweep, especially in a scene at a Wednesday Reading Club meeting in which a grieving Colm opens the most private portion of his soul.
This is familiar territory but it is traveled here with simple honesty, integrity and truth. Nicely done.
Theater Review
SEA MARKS by Gardner McKay. Directed by Daniela Varon; set and costume designer, Kiki Smith; lighting designer, Stephen Ball; sound designer, Michael Pfeiffer. In repertory through Sept. 4. Shakespeare & Company, Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre, 70 Kemble St., Lenox. Tickets: $48-$16. (413) 637-3353; www.shakespeare.org . 2 hours 10 minutes
Colm Primrose Walton Wilson
Timothea Stiles Kristin Wold
