A Degree of Success

A new theatrical production opens at the Vintage Theater in Denver this weekend, of the play Six Degrees of Separation, by John Guare. Its the last production by Vintage in this space. (They're being forced to move by the business they're adjacent to.) I got to watch their final dress rehearsal this week, and I'm happy to say this is a fine production for them to end their tenure in this space.

I watched the movie adapted from this play a little over a year ago, but I had never seen the play itself. The scripts of the two are quite similar; by my memory, I'd say almost identical. The two different mediums definitely favor different aspects within the work.

The play is rife with characters speaking directly to the audience, presenting the story out of order and with their own commentary. In the film, this device is handled with flashbacks, and is much easier to pick up on and process. It also sets up the finale more strongly, in which one character accuses another of just mining their experiences for amusing "anecdotes" to share at parties -- because that's exactly what he's been doing through the whole movie.

On the stage, the rhythm of the play is harder to get into. Things are so rapid fire for the first five or ten minutes that, even knowing the story beforehand, I felt a bit lost. But in exchange for that, the brilliantly written monologues of the different characters come into greater focus. Where the camera cutting of film sometimes robs the power of a good actor giving a good speech, the stage more easily serves up the full emotion, unfiltered and complete from beginning to end.

It's an exceptionally large cast for a modern play (or one that isn't a musical, anyway): 17 characters. And with a bench that deep, perhaps the greatest thing about the Vintage Theater production is that they found so many good actors to fill so many of the roles. Really, everyone is quite good, though a few deserve particular praise. I wish I could single them all out by name, but as I saw a dress rehearsal, I have no program to refer to. I can only say that the performer playing Doug is hysterically funny, the performer playing Rick heartbreakingly powerful, and the two in the larger roles of Ouisa and Paul (pictured) quite skilled in both extremes.

I would certainly recommend the show to fans of theater in the Denver area. It runs throughout the month of March, so you should have plenty of time to go see it.