Flawless Acting, Careful Direction Give Passion and Sensitivity to Georgia

The passion. The curves. The sex. The lines. Reproducing Georgia takes the paintings of Georgia O'Keefe and runs with them.

Using the raw sexual energy of O'Keefe's work as a literal backdrop and metaphorical paragon, Reproducing Georgia, which opened last week, explores art and passion in two and a half hours of witty, lighting-fast, repartee.

Director Dvora Inwood chose her actors and actresses well. Some of the best acting at Harvard commanded the cramped Leverett House Old Library Friday night, making the best of an awkward set and abrupt lighting. The actresses and actors maintained a dizzyingly-paced performance with emotional depth.

Georgia O'Keefe (China Forbes) and Alfred Stieglitz (Karl Lampley) are in fact dead. While their exact metaphysical standing in the play is unclear, spiritually O'Keefe and Stieglitz stand out. They open the performance by addressing the audience, quibbling familiarly over the details of their lives.

Dressed in black for the duration of the play and with her hair pulled back, Forbes creates a strong mythic persona on stage. Believable and likable, Forbes has captured something of the eccentricity and grand stature of O'Keefe.

Stieglitz portrays a noble ghost. On the defensive for most of the play, he pleads with Georgia to remember that intense love, not self-serving objectification, was the main ingredient of their past life together. Lampley makes Stieglitz an attractive character for whom we feel compassion. He lends a crucial element to the legendary love between the two.

A series of vignettes from the early life of O'Keefe informs the audience about the historical context of her life. We hear the whining voices of her narrow-minded family but Georgia does not--the colors of her bucolic youth on a Wisconsin farm call to her. Later, we see O'Keefe in a studio, up against a condescending and arrogant artist (Howie Axelrod) who wants to paint her--but she will not be his model. From the start, Georgia is a spirit set apart.

As the famous history of the couple goes, Stieglitz discovered O'Keefe and put her paintings in his fabled New York gallery, catapulting her to fame and fortune. His photographs of her also earned him great renown, and the love affair which ensued between them was passionate and long-lived.

Reproducing Georgia

directed by Dvora Inwood

at the Leverett House Old Library

Through March 14

O'Keefe, looking back with a wise, posthumous perspective, questions the price of the passion between them. She accuses Stieglitz of objectifying her and earning money from pictures of her. It is a harsh accusation and Stieglitz protests. "I love you Georgia, you are my world," he says. We believe him because it's what we've always heard about the famous couple, and it's what we always wanted to believe.

Karen Hartman, author of the play and now a senior at Yale, was not content to simply explore the conflict between making art and making love in a retrospective of the famous couple. She creates a modern day O'Keefe/Stieglitz couple who speak in contemporary slang instead of smooth myth tones. While Georgia says passionately to Stieglitz, "I will not be your metaphor," her modern day counterpart curses "Fuck off and die."

Audrey (Faith Salie) is a 17-year-old New Yorker who loves Georgia O'Keefe paintings. Victor (Stephan Lucano) is an older man who models for Audrey's sketches. The object/objectifier relationship is a familiar theme to the audience by the time these two come on stage, but the exact connection between the two couples is curious and tenuous until the very end, where everything is tied together perhaps too well.

Inwood, who is a contributor to The Crimson, has carefully directed this play--difficult timing problems are carried out gracefully. The audience learns to trust her. Even though the performance can be a little too fast-paced and full of emotional confrontations at times, Inwood stays in control and doesn't let the speedy banter get out of hand.

The dynamic between Salie and Lucano works wonderfully. Audrey and Victor flirt and argue wildly back and forth. Audrey is a demanding character: a pouty, overly cute teenager who in fact is a talented artist with real substance. We rarely find this risky combination of adolescent coquetry and artistic depth, but Salie succeeds in merging the two. Victor is sweet, but has a quick tongue; Lucano plays the role of the older man with charm, not smarm.

Reproducing Georgia benefits from the high quality of its script. Although in some parts the play ties together a bit too well--the artifice occasionally shows through too boldly--it has moments of great humor and wit. Hartman has an impressive command of the wit which makes the two and a half hours of this play fly by.

Nell Benjamin and Daniela Raz, playing a panoply of parts, provide crucial humor. Benjamin, as both a California "gag me with a spoon" type and a ditzy New York socialite, is hysterical. Raz, as Audrey's obsessive, freaked out mother captivates with her hilarious pronouncements. She fulfills the demands of Hartman's elaborate characterizations flawlessly. These two are a pleasure to watch.

Howie Axelrod comes into his own as Audrey's far out and goofy California boyfriend--he utters his hippie platitudes with just the right combination of humor and perplexity to endear him to us without distracting us from more important characters.

As the play draws to a close, the two couples rendezvous in the metropolitan Museum of Art. O'Keefe urges Audrey to leave Victor. "Not again, Alfred, never again," she says, implying her regret over their love affair.

Can art be made where sex is involved? Will a lover sap the artistic flame essential to the creation of great works? One looks at O'Keefe's work and thinks not; the passion there is unmitigated and uncompromised.

In the end, the power of true love triumphs--not over Art, which will flourish--but over anxiety about independence. See Reproducing Georgia--Art will be made and love will be made. The power of the artistic vision makes a great subject for this well-directed, well-acted and well-conceived play.