Not Quite A Night to Remember

At first glance, the poster from Robert Altman's film "The Player" might appear to be just another randomly placed prop gracing the set of First Night, a convincing facsimile of a video store. Eventually, however, the parallels between the movie and this play become clear. First Night attempts to accomplish with light-hearted humor what "The Player" did with dark satire--to blur the distinction between the worlds of illusion and reality. Yet, while "The Player" illustrates the danger of individuals who lose contact with the real world, First Night wants to affirm the beauty of dreams and their power to make lives extraordinary. But First Night sacrifices dream-like surreality to the demands of a fast-paced comedy, and so falls short of its goal.

Replete with references to "Lost in Space," Florence Henderson, Errol Flynn and John Wayne, the play continually challenges the audience to decide if the characters are experiencing reality or an extremely vivid day-dream.

First Night revels in its dream-like nature, almost as if it is showing how much fun fantasy can be. As the straight man in the play, Irish Catholic Danny Fleming (Bill Selig), a clerk in the video store, declares the he is going to give up his dreams and lead the normal life destiny apparently has in store for him. Soon the audience becomes more and more convinced that rather than repressing his fantasies, Danny is actually constructing the entire play from Danny's fertile imagination. Selig reacts convincingly to the series of improbable events, portraying the tension between his desire to give in to the illusion and his fear of disillusionment.

The cause of Danny's distress is one Sister Meredith Louise, nee Meredith O'Connor (Marit Haahr), a former classmate from St. Patrick's Grammar School and the woman of his dreams. The seeming coincidence of their encounter is belied by Meredith's suspicious behavior, her intrusive questions (prepared beforehand on index cards) and her subsequent attempt to seduce Danny--actions ill-befitting a nun. Haahr is best when she play light-heartedly with her role, delightfully mixing sarcasm and naivete, seductiveness and innocence. Her dizzy ramblings and confused fumbling with her ever-present index cards are endearing.

Yet, the plant seems to call for a dream-like surrealism to explain away the improbable series of events, and this is lacking in this production. At many points, Haahr ceases to be lovable and becomes merely annoying. Selig and Haahr spend too much time wandering around the set with no apparent purpose, screaming their lines at each other in an excited shriek. Both characters often seem to be engaged less in witty verbal sparring than in shrewish quarreling. The fault here lies with director Alexander Franklin and Elisabeth Mayer, who seem to lose control of the play's pace. The dialogue moves beyond hectic into overload. The tension and excitement, rather than growing gradually between them, has built too fast and too early. The long-deterred climax is simply anti-climactic. Tighter direction and a gradual build-up of tension might have served to accentuate the dream like quality that the plot requires.

The play works best on the level of frantic comedy. Here, the high level of tension succeeds in its task. Both Selig and Haahr have an excellent sense of comedic timing, and play off each other well. They successfully embody "typical" Boston Catholics, and then gently poke fun at these same stereotypes.

Although it strives for more, in the end First Night is merely an amusing romance. It never quite convinces the audience that the characters walk a fine line between fact and fiction. First Night desperately wants to convince us that its dreams have more power than our reality. Instead, the audience is left with a pleasantly diverting two hours, a pleasant break from mundane life. Maybe in the end this is all dreams should be.