Photo by Ed Krieger

Something wonderful happens with a play that works. You settle at the far right of an intimate theater, one step from the stage, hard seats, 90 minutes no intermission, nervously checking the route to exit, estimating the embarrassment and chaos you might cause if you have to cross in front of the stage to get to the john. The lights go down and the play opens to an undressed stage: four chairs, four music stands for a string quartet (two violins, a viola and a cello). Spotlight on the violist who explains, in passionate monologue, the emotional effect of music. The scene changes and there is our quartet but without him, auditioning a talented young musician to replace him…(where has he gone?) and then, in a series of short scenes that plunge you into the chaos and tension and distress of four tightly connected musicians trying to make a single glorious sound, you are drawn into the anguish, the struggle, the pettiness, the emotional pain of this tight little group…and you have suddenly forgotten where you are, the state of your bladder, and you have slipped into the world of these five characters. It’s a theater experience that doesn’t always happen. It happens in Opus.

Jia Doughman and Christian Lebano (Photo by Ed Krieger)

Three of the quartet are desperate. The violist of our early monologue is gone and they are invited in a week to play at the White House. The auditioning violist is wonderful…they want her. But is she right in settling for the emotional instability of a string quartet, or should she head for a philharmonic with its health insurance and its anonymity? First violin is domineering and controlling, not only with music but in his relationship with his gay partner (the violist), and we become involved in the unstable duet of the soft lover who pleads for recognition and craves the chance to play a historic violin he’s managed to secure for the group and a partner who not-too-subtly manages to refuse him. The cellist finds that his cancer has returned. The soft lover survives on psychiatric drugs.  If this sounds soap-opera-ish, it’s not. Opus is not a big play, comparing the string quartet with a major orchestra, but in its small way, it draws its audience tightly in. Christian Lebano’s Elliot dominates Daniel Blinkoff’s Dorian, and there is a late scene that shocks the audience to a gasp. Jia Doughman plays the new young talent, but her soft voice covers a strength of decision that makes itself heard at the end.  Gregory Giles and Cooper Thornton all excel in this small, well-crafted play.

Special note for Roy Tanabe who choreographs the actor-musicians’ movements with the recorded music; and a good hand to the director, Simon Levy.

At the Fountain until July 25, 2010.