By Vicki Paris Goodman
Arts & Entertainment Editor
Park Your Car in Harvard Yard is every bit as fine a dramatic two-actor play as The Gin Game or Visiting Mr. Green. I just wasn’t familiar with it. No matter, as I love a surprise. You know, the kind of wonderful surprise that comes from experiencing an evening of theater that is both poignant and cerebral when you least expected something special.
When elderly Jacob Brackish learns he may only have a year to live, he advertises for a live-in housekeeper to care for him in his final months. Little does he know that Kathleen Hogan, who answers his ad and lands the job, failed his high school English Literature and Music Appreciation classes many years before. And so did both her parents, as well as her recently deceased husband.
Yes, well, I didn’t think this premise sounded overly fascinating, either. But actor Joseph Ruskin gives Brackish such a complex interpretation that you don’t know whether to like him or loathe him. But we want very much to know how to feel, so Ruskin’s masterful job of keeping us largely in the dark only makes the play more intriguing.
By the same token, Jacqueline Schultz gives Kathleen a multifaceted vindictive streak the nature of which is a bit of a mystery. Is this all about Brackish having flunked her and most of her family? Is there more to know about her life that explains the apparently broken woman who should still have many good years left? Or is she simply grieving the loss of her husband? And speaking of her husband, what was their marriage like?
Playwright Israel Horovitz makes us want to know it all. And we do get the whole story. We just have to be patient for a little while.
Actually, Park Your Car in Harvard Yard is almost a three-actor play. Brackish’s console radio, always tuned to the local Gloucester, Massachusetts, classical music station, features the kvetchy commentary of program host Byron Weld. Playwright Horovitz must have had a blast recording the voiceover for Weld’s spots that try fruitlessly to appeal to the sympathy, guilt and, of course, pocketbooks of listeners.
Horovitz inserts a corker of a twist at the end of the first act – naughty Brackish! And now that Kathleen is angrier than ever, she can’t maintain her first act decency in the second act and the truth begins to unfold.
In the meantime, a formidable question has arisen. Is Kathleen justified in blaming Brackish for the fact that she and her family all wound up losers? Could his teacherly expectations have been that unrealistic, that unfair? Or was Brackish merely a teacher with standards (what a concept) who didn’t let poor students slide on through?
As usual, International City Theatre’s production values are first rate on every score. John Iacovelli’s set design is breathtaking in its beauty and detailing. Director Hope Alexander certainly had a lot to work with in Ruskin and Schultz. Still, she deserves enormous credit for her creative staging, perfect pacing and comic touches that make this production so outstanding.
Park Your Car in Harvard Yard continues at International City Theatre in the Long Beach Performing Arts Center, located at 300 E. Ocean Blvd., through May 25. Performances are Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 8PM; Sundays at 2PM. Tickets are $32.00 and $37.00 on Thursdays; $37.00 and $42.00 on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.
Call (562) 436-4610 for information and reservations or visit ICT’s Web site at www.ictlongbeach.org.
