By Holly JohnsonThe Oregonian
February 1, 2009
The idea of a single precious object being passed from one person to another on a quixotic journey follows a plot device as old as fairy tales. In "A String of Pearls," currently at Artists Repertory Theatre, playwright Michele Lowe uses a highly feminine item, a pearl necklace, to trace the lives of women of different ages and socio-economic backgrounds.
They all share a passion for the necklace for various reasons, as the chain of events unfold, and the pearls connect their lives. Vana O'Brien, Amaya Villazan, Sarah Lucht and Elizabeth Huffman sketch 27 different characters over 35 years, and do a crystal clear job of delineation, as the pearls follow a circular route, predictably but satisfyingly ending up with the original owner.
Part fantasy, part straight drama, the contemplative 90-minute play serves primarily as a paean to women, whether they're getting married, battling cancer, chasing careers or looking for love. And in deference to the pearl and its oyster, water imagery fills the play. Women meet to swim together at a Midwestern lake or at a New York swimming pool. The moon, a symbol of the pearl and of feminine power, gleams over the water in Jeff Seats' inviting, multi-purpose set.
O'Brien plays Beth, a woman in her 70s who looks for her prize string of pearls to give her grand daughter (Villazan) who is getting married. The strand is missing, and here begins the tale. We flash back to Beth's younger days, how she inadvertently sparked the sexual side of her marriage, and got the pearls in the first place from an amorous husband. What her daughter did with them is another story. Thereafter, they are bestowed on an unlikely friend, stolen by a husband, found in a vacuum cleaner, sold to a Parisian jewelry store, and in true fairy-tale fashion, swallowed by a fish.
One character describes the sensuality of the pearls "like a kiss on my neck, cool and smooth to the touch."
Amid the pathos, humor races through the story, provided in particular by Lucht, who is drolly funny as a young businesswoman in New York dogged by a pushy mother. When mom dies, her daughter plans a very different burial than her fussy parent would have wanted. Villazan shines in all her roles, and is most poignant as a Third World refugee working in a California hotel, who snatches the pearls from a controlling boyfriend, and flees to freedom.
Although some of Lowe's narrative felt flat and prosaic, she excels at character sketches, and provides welcome doses of irony and coincidence throughout. Director Alana Byington keeps the blocking fluid and interesting as scenes flow together seamlessly.
