|
"Daddy picked me up at school in the Buick. 'Up for a
spin, Doll?' was the way he put it. Jaunty, always."
Morgan Aspair -- the beautiful, spoiled Morgan Aspair, just in
from the Coast -- is reminiscing about her movie-mogul father.
"The Buick was a Roadmaster convertible, with four
portholes on the side. Daddy pointed to the portholes. Daddy
said, 'Did you ever notice that when you buy the cheapest
Buick, you get only three? Did you notice that when you move
up to the next class, you still get only three? And in the
next class, still only three? You got to go all the way to
the top of the line to get that fourth porthole, Doll.'"
The principle of the fourth porthole is important to The
Tennis Game, George W. S. Trow's very civil, very scathing
study of 20th century American aristocracy through three
generations. The play takes place on a tennis court, the
natural habitat of modern-day royalty, whose power is rooted
in money, marriage and mental health. Accordingly, each
succeeding "set" -- the turn-of-the-century Newport
Set, the Fast Set of the '20s and '30s, and today's Boom Set
-- plays a set of tennis, then gives up the court to the
coming generation. Each of the play's three scenes introduces
a different era and is dominated by the monologue of its
leading spokesperson. Except for passing remarks, though, and
a symbolic slow-motion "game" that serves as
transition from scene to scene, there's no interaction between
old and young.
Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt represents the Newport Set. Mrs.
Vanderbilt understands the importance of her expensive name
and repeats it often, remembers the vogue for baby talk,
prefers it to the new vogue for sports, seems to be having
some trouble with an ungrateful son. Mrs. Vanderbilt cannot
keep up with the Fast Set, which includes Brenda Mdvani, nee
Brenda Drew, whose mother was manicurist at Newport's
Merovingian Hotel. Brenda is married to Prince Mdvani, who
was, we're told, the first member of his generation "to
take an interest in dogs"; she is also overly fond of
"those lovely green drinks" and drives an
ostentatious Rolls which may or may not have been spotted
speeding from the site of a hit-and-run accident. Finally
there is the Boom Set, exemplified by Morgan Aspair, who is
dangerously devoted to her legendary father, has had marzipan
party favors made in her own image, amuses herself by
shoplifting pearl chokers from Van Cleef and Arpel's in Bev
Hills, and has the feeling of "a small obstruction, small
in that she cannot be sure exactly where it is, small in that
she may be imagining it." She probably imagines lots of
things, which is why she's undergoing therapy with a
sweat-suited smoothie who tries unsuccessfully to psychobabble
her into some sort of trust. "Access to my personal
space?" she snorts. "You've got to be kidding. You
came in on a bus. I never took a bus in my life."
Overseeing the match is Charlotte Sims, who makes sure each
generation retires gracefully to the sidelines when its heyday
has passed. Charlotte herself transcends "sets"; she
is beyond fashion. Having earned her "fourth
porthole" (in coal), she has learned to be infinitely
flexible, to change with the trends. ("I go with the
speed," she says, or "I go with the numbers.")
Her function in the play is unclear; it seems to shift from
coach to referee to emcee, nurse, shrink, all-purpose
Authority. (Her tennis whites prove a suitable all-purpose
uniform.) Charlotte seems to know the rules of the game better
than anyone else; she may, in fact, be the only one who knows
them. At the end, after Morgan has collapsed blithering before
a gaggle of est-fried goons, Charlotte warns the audience:
"If you dwell on this girl's sickness, on the sad
delusions of the group, then you have not attended the
game."
The Tennis Game -- which opened the summer season at
the Lenox Arts Center, in the Berkshires -- marks the
playwriting debut of George W. S. Trow, whose fascination with
the rich and the pretentious has already been exhibited in
contributions to the New Yorker. (The most memorable
include his profile of record-industry giant Ahmet Ertegun,
his account of lunch with the rock critic establishment, and
his invention of the Bobby Bison Affordables, young upwardly
mobile types who can be hired to consume on demand.) Not
surprisingly, The Tennis Game players speak in stylish New
Yorker prose -- elegant, crisp, wistful, and a little
murky. The play's brilliant surface keeps you scrabbling for
meanings long afterwards.
Frankly, I'm still puzzling it out -- and I have a funny
feeling that the author meant for me to feel I'd missed
something important. It is to Trow's credit that his rich,
resonant writing requires unusual concentration, but there is
an unwholesome amount of deliberate obfuscation as well. If a
point is being made about class distinctions in America
(disappearing or holding on? good or bad?), it's too deeply
buried. Furthermore, the play's heavily ironic tone is
distracting as well as tantalizing. Are the title and
leitmotif meant to spoof The Gin Game? Is Charlotte
Sims a parody of Joan Didion's Charlotte "My husband runs
guns is there caviar?" Douglas? Is Morgan Aspair a thinly
disguised Margaux Hemingway? Should we be asking these
questions? Still, The Tennis Game is as intriguing a
play as I've encountered in months. Despite its static
quality, Trow's characters have wonderfully original comic
voices.
I wish there were more space in which to discuss the Lenox
Arts Center's excellent production. The casting of Linda Hunt
-- an incredibly tiny and incredibly good actress -- as the
imposing Charlotte Sims is one of those inspired,
chance-in-a-lifetime matings of player and part; her
performance is unforgettable. Karen Ludwig underplays Morgan
Aspair to similarly spectacular effect, and Leora Dana, Linda
Atkinson, and Jon Huberth are fine. Only Ed Setrakian's
excessive (but mercifully brief) blustering disrupts the show.
William Schimmel's according score is delightful, but it
belongs in another play; here it seems an obvious afterthought
-- or an excuse for including The Tennis Game in
Lenox's experimental music-theater program. It's a small and
painless price to pay for such a remarkable script.
Boston Phoenix, July 1978
|
