Word: carmichael
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Seventeen actors and actresses ranging in age and experience from A.R.T. Director Robert Brustein to undergraduate James A. Carmichael '01 accompanied Bloom in the reading...
Never Swim Alone portrays ambition and rivalry taken to their violent extremes, and what better venue than Harvard? Daniel MacIvor's "play in 13 rounds" as it has been called, pits boyhood friends Bill (Daniel P. Berwick '01) and Frank (James A. Carmichael '01) against one another in a series of contests, from mundane height comparisons to explosive verbal sparring to physical violence. The match is refereed by a mysterious woman (Kathleen A. Agresta '01), who, in addition to narrating, also becomes a specter from the boys' past...
...beginning of the play starts off with a simple height comparison and progresses though pretty silly contests, with plenty of laughs along the way. Berwick and Carmichael play off each other remarkably well, finishing each other's sentences and creating huge verbal fugues. (Kudos to director Jordan R. Berkow on choreographing such a complicated verbal ballet.) Both men are appealing and personable, in spite of their faults and their one-upmanship. But as the play goes on, the verbal spars become far more aggressive as they needle each other about affairs, jobs, and kids...
...most disturbing aspect about fights between best friends, as I'm sure most of us know, is that friends know just where to aim. And Carmichael and Berwick show themselves to be masters of this point-blank verbal sparing. The quick one-liners keep flowing throughout the play, even as the tension increases between the two men. But the source of the hate between the two is revealed as they reenact a scene from a childhood summer, in which a girl-chillingly portrayed with both detachment and energy by Agresta-dies while they race each other to the point, leaving...
...German apathy as a reaction to the Third Reich held in a fictional city being torn apart (down?) by arson. The arsonists come to your doorstep as homeless men looking for shelter, and they don't leave. See it for the Greek chorus of firemen choreographed by James Carmichael. Or for the all-star cast which includes Alexis Burgess and Emily Knapp. Or for McClelland's original production which includes video and slide projections to set the scene and perhaps a real fire to torch the scene...