Feb 28, 2008

Case of blind leading the blind

Play questions realities of sight

By John Angell Grant / Theater Reviewer

Be careful what you ask for, you might get it. That's how it goes in Irish playwright Brian Friel's thought-provoking 1994 play "Molly Sweeney," a moving and disturbing production playing at Pear Avenue Theatre in Mountain View.

"Molly Sweeney" is about a happy, productive and well-adjusted 49-year-old woman, who was blind for most of her life. That life changes when she gets talked into eye surgery by an enthusiastic new husband and a world-class surgeon down on his marital and alcoholic luck.

The play is a very loose and fictionalized adaptation of a medical case study reported by famed literary neurologist Oliver Sacks in his book "An Anthropologist on Mars." The adaptation ends up being a rather surprising story about the relative character of our perceptions. It also addresses the dangerous narcissistic arrogance of professional medical science.

In this play, surgery gives Molly Sweeney partial sight at age 49. Suddenly, the way she experiences her world shifts dramatically and the balance of her sense perceptions is thrown out of whack.

Diane Tasca turns in a very good performance as Molly, who has learned to live life with four senses only. Molly is a person without self-pity or resentment, and Tasca sells this character's quiet and adventuresome spirit.

Molly has been able to live a full and rewarding life, winning prizes as a swimming champion, and working as a massage therapist. She is able to dance from room to room in her house, without hitting furniture or people.

At the center of the play is a philosophical discussion about the meaning of sight. Reports one philosopher, humans develop an engram for each of the five senses.

The dominant visual engram integrates the other four sense engrams to form meaning. The five engrams work together to create a person's experience of reality. For a person without sight, who is missing the dominant vision engram, the fabric of experience is different.

"Molly Sweeney" is staged as a series of monologues by three performers. In rotation, each addresses either the audience, or some spirit in the imagination, and tells a moment of the story from one perspective. Director Dean Burghi smoothly choreographs the changes from moment to moment, so it all feels like one fabric.

John Baldwin turns in an excellent, thoughtful performance as the lonely, alcoholic eye surgeon, unraveling Molly's medical mystery and coming up with a therapeutic plan.
Troy Johnson is her enthusiastic, blundering husband. This performance is less carefully focused on its imaginary interlocutors than the other two performances.

Burghi's authentic-feeling 1950-ish set offers several household spaces and a doctor's study. Sound designer Derek Batoyon's wonderful traditional Irish music selection plays hauntingly on the quaint set before the show starts.

In planning Molly's surgery, the people around her ask, "What does she have to lose?" A lot, as it turns out.

As Molly's new visual engram tries to coordinate with her other senses, at age 49, it doesn't develop the way it develops in a child. At the same time, her former four-sense system of adjustment to the world is gone.

"Molly Sweeney" is a thoughtful play about how we experience life and the meaning of relationships. Considered also are the dangers posed by the arrogance of medical science. "Molly Sweeney" is a powerful, magical and poetic tale.

Rating: Three and one half stars

E-mail John Angell Grant at jagplays@dailynewsgroup.com.