The Revisionist

By Jesse Eisenberg

Photos by Kevin Parry and Tom Buderwitz

Credits

The Revisionist
By Jesse Eisenberg
Lovelace Theatre, Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts

Starring: Deanna Dunagan, Seamus Mulcahy, Ilia Volok

Set: Tom Buderwitz; Costumes: Jocelyn Hublau; Lights: Leigh Allen; Sound: John Zalewski

Reviews

LA Times:
…such a fine production.
Director Robin Larsen has staged the play for maximum intimacy, with audience members seated on opposite sides of Tom Buderwitz’s convincingly cramped one-bedroom apartment set. The sharp scenic focus is impressive…

Arts in LA:
…under the fluid staging by director Robin Larsen—guiding her actors as they maneuver around Tom Buderwitz’s intentionally claustrophobic set, Dunagan is unobtrusively mesmerizing as Maria. She finds all the complex subtleties that paint her character’s narrow existence and her secluded life hampered by haunted memories of her horrifyingly troubled past.

Haines His Way:
Under the tight direction of Robin Larsen, Seamus Mulcahy and Deanna Dunagan essay the roles of distant second cousins.
The action takes place in the cramped quarters of Maria’s apartment, skillfully rendered along the length of the theatre by scenic designer Tom Buderwitz. The seating is tennis style with the audience separated by the playing space, making for a close up look at this detailed work. Mulcahy and Dunagan seamlessly inhabit their characters. He pushes just enough to make David almost totally unlikable but then with a smile or a gesture wins you over again. She artfully shows us a woman who has spent most of her life alone and is desperate for any human interaction. Together they make a dynamic duo.

Gia on the Move:
The entire play is an essay on frustration and all three characters seem to be forever stuck in their own corners.  And while it might seem initially easy to dismiss the conversation struck by Eisenberg’s writing as not particularly new, combined with Larsen’s direction The Revisionist’s generational exactitude highlights the profoundly frightening person to person isolation of our time.
Actor Seamus Mulcahy delivers a rather spot on David – mercilessly selfish but occasionally sensitive on par with Deanna Dunagan’s relentlessly needy and highly volatile Maria.  Ilia Volok utterly captures Zenon, culturally and hilariously making this character much more of a focal point that it might normally be.

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