ON THE STAGE

Stormy Seas at PRT

Anne Kelly-Saxenmeyer
Mirror contributing writer

   If Eugene O’Neill’s “Anna Christie” were simply the story of a fallen woman made clean by a new love, it might not have inspired two films and numerous stage revivals, including a 1995 Broadway staging and, most recently, director Gar Campbell’s production at the Pacific Resident Theatre.
   As Campbell’s design team understands, the constant proximity of the sea and all its attendant weather in O’Neill’s text lends an almost mythical significance to the machinations of three people on a coal barge, as they struggle toward a temporary happiness.
The title character is a young woman raised by cruel relatives after the death of her mother and finally forced into a life of prostitution. Reunited with her seafaring father, Christopher Christopherson (William Lithgow), after a 15-year estrangement, Anna (Lesley Fera) must reconcile her categorical hatred of men with her need to belong. Kind but childlike, Chris welcomes Anna but would rather not know about her past — much less take the blame for having abandoned her.
   In his eyes, all blame is due to “dat ole davil sea.” And the past might indeed have been buried if not for the arrival, by row boat, of shipwrecked stoker Mat Burke (Matt McKenzie), who falls in love with Anna and, in his zeal to marry her, forces a confession.
   Fera is a stunning Anna in every incarnation, from the frightened, weary girl who arrives in New York, to a heartened young woman aboard her father’s coal barge, to a woman enraged by another attempt to cage her. With deft direction by Campbell, Fera and Lithgow do a beautiful job of crafting the relationship between Anna and Chris, one of embarrassed tenderness, resentment (on Anna’s part), and deep need, in which the roles of parent and child constantly shift. Matt McKenzie’s good-humored, passionate Mat is a joy to watch, though his fire doesn’t always fix itself on Fera, and the chemistry between the two is intermittent.
   Bonnie Bowers gives a memorable performance as Marthy Owen, the hard but compassionate girlfriend with whom Chris sheepishly parts to make room for Anna. All of the actors do admirable jobs with their dialects, none of which are shared.
   Scenic designer David Dionisio’s simple, attractive set converts effectively from pub to barge to cabin (though the decision to have actors move props was fairly jarring). The effect wouldn’t be complete, however, without Victoria Profitt’s scenic art design, Keith Endo’s lighting and Kevin Rahm’s evocative sound. This team seizes on every bit of weather, every time-of-day reference to create a fateful, larger-than life context for the drama. Just as O’Neill imagined, a “dense fog shrouds the barge on all sides” at the opening of Act II. Waves lap the sides of the vessel. Clouds painted on the walls are lit in pink tufts in Act III, becoming one luminous fog in Act IV. Seagulls scream at the top of Act III, an excellent touch by Rahm. Thus the sea in all of its powerful guises serves to dwarf the three seafarers, at once lending poignance to their labors.
   “Anna Christie” at the Pacific Resident Theatre, 703 Venice Blvd., Venice. Thurs.-Sat. 8 p.m. Sun. 3 p.m. through March 10. $20-$23.50. (310) 822-8392.