Saturn Returns

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Saturn Returns

At South Coast Repertory

Reviewed by Dany Margolies

November 05, 2009

If there's a lesson to be learned, it's taught so gently we miss it, making Noah Haidle's West Coast premiere a great first act to a play we hope he someday finishes. The title refers to the 30-year trip Saturn takes around the solar system, marking a turning point in each person's life. As Gustin Novak looks back at the "echoes" of his life, he appears to us at ages 28, 58, and 88.

Gustin is played by three actors, superbly cast (whether by director David Emmes or casting director Joanne DeNaut) at remarkably identical heights and body types, remarkably identical vocal qualities, and coiffed and mustached to look like the same person at different ages. Nick Ullett plays the eldest version, Conor O'Farrell the middle, and Graham Michael Hamilton the youngest. Each actor is wonderful, with a fully justifiable interpretation of Gustin. Whether in accordance with the direction or by individual choice, however, each seems to create a different man. Ullett is part vaudevillian, part dramatically realistic, with genuine heartbreak behind Gustin's quippy conversation. O'Farrell plays the middle-aged man as serious, intractable, and with a cruel streak. Hamilton makes him searching, youthfully bumbling, and gently desperate.

Gustin's foil in each scene is played by Kristen Bush. She beautifully creates the newlywed wife, the adult daughter, and the young caretaker. Each of her characters has a different energy, a different spirit: the wife cooly ethereal, the daughter warmly earthy, the caretaker politely distant and then sweetly needy.

Nephelie Andonyadis creates costumes that not only evoke their periods but are also swiftly changed as Bush exits one scene and enters another in a completely new set of clothes, shoes, and wigs. Kimberly Egan's sound design includes the charmingly muffled rock music from upstairs, cars driving by, and an old-time telephone ring.

Much of the play is about people who don't talk about things, even though Gustin "appreciates nothing more than the English language used with care and precision." What have they learned by play's end? What have we learned? Something is buried here in its under-80-minute running time. We'd gladly sit through more to find out what it is.

Presented by and at South Coast Repertory, 655 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. Oct. 30–Nov. 22. Tue.–Wed., 7:30 p.m.; Thu.–Fri., 8 p.m.; Sat., 2:30 and 8 p.m.; Sun., 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. (714) 708-5555. www.scr.org.