Suzanne Vega brings her cool, insinuating voice and smoldering stage presence to "Carson McCullers Talks About Love," a 90-minute song-filled impersonation of the author of such works as "The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter" and "The Member of the Wedding."
Altogether lacking in drama, conflict, and story, "Carson McCullers Talks About Love" isn't a play or a musical as much as a themed concert, in which Vega, as McCullers, does little more than speak and sing about love, exactly as the title promises. This kind of show could easily become static or boring, but Vega's charisma, director Kay Matschullat's canny staging, and McCullers' singular persona make the stage glow with warmth and humor. Matschullat deserves special commendation for her tactic of requiring Vega to pour drinks and read letters, thus nudging her away from a stand-and-deliver concert-style performance.
A bracing score by Vega and Duncan Sheik, composer of "Spring Awakening," with additional music by Michael Jefry Stevens, punctuates McCullers' reminiscences with outbursts of color and passion. Unlike songs in a traditional musical, these don't build character or advance action; they do, however, make thematic and emotional contributions, and when combined with the show's other elements, they create an original and evocative performance piece.
Vega begins the proceedings as herself, stepping onto Louisa Thompson's flexible platform set and explaining how a photograph of McCullers that she saw at age 17 initiated her fascination with the Georgia writer. Then Vega dons a bobbed wig and various articles of 1940s clothing and becomes McCullers, who proceeds to tell us of her life and loves, beginning with her birth as Lula Carson McCullers; moving through her years in New York, where she achieved early fame; and concluding with revelations of a paralyzing stroke suffered at 35 and an early death at 50. Along the way we learn of her tragic marriage to Reeves McCullers, who committed suicide, and of the three great loves in her life: Annemarie Clarac-Schwarzenbach, a morphine addict; the writer Katherine Anne Porter; and David Diamond, a gay composer. None of these relationships brought McCullers much satisfaction, but as she tells us in a song, "Nothing that is human is alien to me" (a sentiment expressed by the Roman playwright Terence and also used by McCullers' friend Tennessee Williams in "The Night of the Iguana"). Such openness of spirit brought her great pain, but at the same time it ennobled her.
As smart as any other element in the piece is the byplay between Vega and her superb accompanists, pianist Joe Iconis and guitarist Andy Stack. Iconis, a noted writer of rock-based musical theater himself, constantly interrupts, corrects, and needles Vega, who responds playfully in kind. Together they forge an odd, rule-busting relationship that's completely suited to a work about an iconoclastic woman famed for her own society-bucking relationships.
Presented by and at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, 224 Waverly Place, NYC. May 5–June 5. Mon., Wed.–Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 3 p.m. (212) 868-4444 or www.smarttix.com. Casting by Calleri Casting.