'Finger' Exercises Dramatic Control

“Don’t you think you’re being overdramatic?” asks Louise Harrington (Kelly E. Perron ’11)—mother of the fractious, dysfunctional family which “Five Finger Exercise” centers around—of her daughter’s tutor Walter (Noah J. Madoff ’12). “No,” he replies, “No, I don’t.” Walter’s acceptance of the melodramatic could be a motto for this production of the play, which emphasizes the satirical, over-the-top aspects of Peter Shaffer’s script while still finding room for more philosophical segments.

Shaffer’s body of work is an idiosyncratic mix of gloomy, meditative dramas and satirical comedies. “Five Finger Exercise,” which runs in the Loeb Experimental Theater through March 12, is the play that garnered him his first public acclaim in 1958, and it can’t seem to decide which side of that genre line it falls on. Despite a few missed notes, the cast very nearly reconciles these two disparate halves into a cohesive whole that entertains while confronting serious questions of family, responsibility, and class.

“Five Finger Exercise” follows Louise Harrington and her husband Stanley (Matthew J. DaSilva ’12), whose conflicting attitudes towards culture are at one point described as “the difference between the salon and the saloon.” They force these views on their two children: the artistically-inclined Clive (Stewart N. Kramer ’12) and his abrasive but endearing younger sister Pamela (Vanessa B. Koo ’12).

Divided by class, culture, and aspirations, the four are engaged in a constant struggle of wills, mercilessly manipulating each other for personal gain. “This isn’t a family,” Clive declares in one of the play’s more melodramatic moments, “it’s a tribe of wild cannibals. We eat everything we can.” The arrival of Walter—a young German tutor who embodies the tormented intellectual that Clive aspires to be and the cultivated manner Louise values so highly—urges the familial culture war to new heights.

Walter’s unwitting participation in the family’s tangled romantic web provides narrative thrust, but the true purpose of the play is to investigate the dialectic between art and work, between high culture and low, as well as the challenges and responsibilities of family.

The complex interplay between characters demands much from the actors in a play that finds room for both comedic and dramatic moments. For the most part, the cast pulls it off. Kramer delivers as Clive, nailing the desperate, angst-ridden teen with a deliberately exaggerated performance, allowing for ambiguity concerning how much of his persona is affectation and how much is real anguish.

The script, as well as his pertinence to college students, places Clive firmly in the central role, but the other four cast members provide ample support. Koo has exceptional chemistry with Kramer, and Perron affects the earnest but obviously artificial upper-class airs of Louise with panache. While the cast occasionally misses the script’s dramatic peaks, especially in the slow-boiling first act, by the play’s climatic moments they’ve settled into their characters. As the simmering tension finally explodes, Madoff and DaSilva in particular provide a deeply affecting finale that gets the play’s significant messages across effectively, if unsubtly.

A sprawling, deliberately worn set takes full advantage of the Loeb Ex’s black box space. Staging and lighting are mostly unobtrusive, allowing the actors to carry the play. Sound design plays a larger role—piano interludes complement the household’s cultural conflicts, while a battered turntable that sticks frequently punctuates the play’s powerful final moments. Overall, the production is fairly sparse, which accentuates the dreary gloom of the Harrington family’s relationships and takes the edge off some of the potential melodrama.

“Five Finger Exercise” never quite resolves its internal genre conflict, and this production doesn’t solve that dilemma. Instead, it does its best to balance the two sides—satirical comedy and more serious meditation—and mostly succeeds, even if the latter half sometimes gets a little lost in the process.

—Staff writer Daniel K. Lakhdhir can be reached at daniel.lakhdhir@college.harvard.edu.