April 3, 2008 Issue                                       

©2007 The Chestnut Hill Local

‘Third’ a first-rate play at Suzanne Roberts Theatre
by CLARK GROOME

There is something fundamentally decent about the characters in Third, Wendy Wasserstein’s last play. Wasserstein, who died of cancer at 55 in early 2006, is the Pulitzer Prize- and Tony Award-winning playwright whose focus was always on the humanity of her often feminist and generally likeable characters.

Her best work — The Heidi Chronicles (for which she won the Pulitzer and Tony in 1989), Uncommon Women and Others and my favorite, The Sisters Rozensweig — captures what for many is a paradox: sometimes annoying people are good people, worthy of spending time with.

In Third, which is getting a splendid production at the Philadelphia Theatre Company through April 20, there is a warmth about her treatment of characters that belies the fact that they are sometimes maddeningly annoying. (Third is at the new Suzanne Roberts Theatre, Broad and Lombard Streets.)

The current effort, which opened off-Broadway just three months before Wasserstein’s death, takes place at a selective New England college at which Laurie Jamieson (Lizbeth Mackay) is a liberal feminist firebrand who teaches some of the most popular courses at a school that originated as an all-male institution and which is now co-ed.

Into her class comes Woodson Bull III (Will Fowler), a good-looking, white, Groton-educated heterosexual jock from the Midwest who might just be a Republican and who is, it turns out, brilliant.

He looks like anything but a smart kid who could write a revelatory paper on King Lear, which he does and which Jamieson accuses  him of plagiarizing. And therein lies Laurie Jamieson’s irony: for someone who decries judging people on their outward appearance, that’s exactly what she does with Bull, whom she calls Woody when he prefers his lifelong nickname, Third.

As an advocate for those who had for years been marginalized (gays, people of color, women etc.), her behavior is counter to everything she says she believes in. For all that, there is an honesty about her that makes her likeable while still being maddeningly hypocritical.

As with so much of Wasserstein’s work, there is a core of strength in this play that suffers from some flawed construction. Two of her characters — her daughter Emily (Jennifer Blood) and her demented father (Ben Hammer) — are little more than plot devices.

The play’s only other character is Professor Nancy Gordon (Melanye Finister), Laurie’s best friend who is suffering from debilitating cancer. According to the renowned director and producer Andre Bishop, all of Wasserstein’s work was at some level autobiographical, and this character may be her most autobiographical of all.

When Third is called before the academic discipline committee, it is Nancy who defends him and casts the deciding vote to overturn the charges Laurie has brought against him.

At times the play seems pat and predictable. In spite of that, the characters are always likeable, and there is something quite touching about the entire affair. I came away from PTC’s handsome Suzanne Roberts Theatre on opening night feeling that Third was a friendly play.

And, thanks to director Mary B. Robinson’s fine direction, it really was. Lizbeth Mackay, whose Laurie grows tolerant and ultimately redeems her horrible treatment of her student, is just right in her part. While she is clearly driven by her feminist and liberal instincts (the play takes place just as America is about to invade Iraq in 2003), her decency and honesty come believably through, in spite of what seems like a pig-headed approach to her points of view.

Her treatment of her father and her interactions with her daughter are in the play to humanize her, and it works.

Will Fowler is simply perfect as Third. The others in the cast all do well, with a particular nod to Melanye Finister’s Nancy, the play’s most interesting supporting character. Unlike Emily and Laurie’s father, Nancy is fully drawn and quite appealing.

Mary Robinson is no stranger in these parts, having directed at PTC several times before and having been the artistic director of the late, lamented Philadelphia Drama Guild at which she also directed, always to good effect. Here her direction is characteristically clear, adding to the play’s warmth and honesty.

The play’s excellent designers are James Noone (set), Karen Ann Ledger (costumes), Russell Champa (lighting) and Fitz Patton (sound).

Third is not a perfect play. It is not Wasserstein’s best. But it is honest and engaging, with likeable characters who struggle to be who they are and to coexist with others who are different. In that it succeeds handsomely.

For tickets to the Philadelphia Theatre Company production of Wendy Wasserstein’s Third, playing through April 20, call 215-985-0420 or 866-985-0420 or visit www.phillytheatre.com.