Word: nagin
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With the exception of Frances Gitter's performance of Mary, the actors did not play these moments of contrast, or at best glossed over them. Carl Nagin does Edmund as the traditional Sensitive Young Man. His bitterness is searing, but his tenderness is embarrassed and whispered. Daniel Seltzer as James has much the same problem. He vehemently attacks his lines until the effect is dulled the same way listening to a jackhammer for three hours induces deafness. It is only in the play's magnificent last act when Edmund and James are both drunk that Nagin and Seltzer managed...
...ostensible theme of the play is anti-semitism, but it's wider than that. It's a psycho-political horror story--rather like The Visit--and involves an enormous amount of character development on the part of one Andri (Carl Nagin). Except for Teacher (Marc Temin) and Barblin (Julie Tolliver) the other parts are basically designed for character actors...
...Nagin and Temin and Miss Tolliver have harder jobs, but they fail for many of the same reasons as the others. In the scene where Teacher comes home drunk and tries to talk to the insolent, isolated Andri, Temin and Nagin could have developed a beautiful pattern of slurred overture and acid rebuff. They merely mixed lines and frustrations. The last scene between Barblin and Andri might have built to a striking conclusion. Nagin and Miss Tolliver strove and fumbled, but without precision or notable effect...
Individually, Miss Tolliver turned in the evenest performance of the three. Temin has an annoying habit of representing fear or trauma by having a tightly-reined, slow-motion epileptic fit. And Nagin relies too much on twisting his neck and anguishing. Once an actor has anguished a couple of times he doesn't tell you much about what's going on inside him the next three dozen times...
...Nagin is an engaging puzzle. He always remains detached. He is warm, he smiles with real affection. But he never plunges into his part. He seems to be watching his fellow actors as well as reacting to them. Half his glances seem really directed at the audience. This reserve may well be justified in the magical character he plays. But it does close off one means of audience involvement. And it limits his comic effect. You can't project omniscience and take the audience in. Even if you have all the answers, you have to look fooled to be funny...