The next time you read a profile of a famous performer in The New Yorker, Vanity Fair or The New York Times Magazine, think of “Dinner With the Duchess.”
Next Act Theatre’s new production of Nick Green’s play dramatizes the perils of the celebrity interview for both sides of the encounter, and how difficult it can be to grapple with a whole life in a single meeting.
Samantha Martinson directs “Duchess,” which unfolds in real time, beginning with the arrival of journalist Helen (Mai Abe) at the home of Margaret (Laura Gordon), a famous violinist who has recently and mysteriously retired from her symphony position.
Margaret claims this will be her last interview. As they talk, Margaret’s doting husband, David (Andrew May), serves them takeout pasta he has gussied up with lemon zest.
Margaret is nervous, high-strung and occasionally patronizing to both her husband and the journalist. She claims to want this interview to be about her music and her legacy. But Helen is there to find out if Margaret’s retirement is connected to accounts of problematic behavior.
There is nothing legato about the role Gordon is asked to play here. As Helen probes, Margaret throws a dizzying array of obfuscations, subject changes, disruptions and ego moments at the reporter. Yet maybe, under those defenses, the violinist wants to share how hard it has been to be a starring female artist in what has been a man’s game. (Margaret’s age and star status are relevant here. For context, more than half the current violinists in the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra are women.)
While Margaret accuses Helen of being dishonest and unethical in her approach, that’s not true, unless you think doing research and asking direct questions are unethical. Abe gives Helen a fairly cool affect. She’s not unduly confrontational; she simply persists in asking questions.
When Margaret’s transgressions are named, what results is anguish for all: violinist, journalist and audience. Yes, they merit public attention. But to me, they pale compared to what many powerful men in the classical world have gotten away with. We’re in a familiar, unsolvable quandary: in considering legacy, how do we reconcile artistic achievement with fallible human behavior?
Gordon deftly portrays this complicated and often unlikable-woman who appears to have sacrificed everything for her art. She has some substantial monologues in Green’s play, including a concluding one of Beethovenian length. May has a beautiful scene where David describes falling in love with Margaret – which she watches, unnoticed, from a distance.
If you go
Next Act Theatre performs “Dinner With the Duchess” through May 17 at 255 S. Water St. Visit nextact.org or call (414) 278-0765.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: An interview turns dangerous in Next Act’s ‘Dinner With the Duchess’
Reporting by Jim Higgins, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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