Theatre in Review: The Babylon Line (Lincoln Center Theater/Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater)

	Josh Radnor, Elizabreth Reaser. Photo: Jeremy Daniel.

"The time to make up your mind about people is never," wrote Philip Barry, words that came to mind while seeing The Babylon Line -- and not just because playwright Richard Greenberg concocts elegant cocktails of substance and high comedy in the classic manner of Barry and S. N. Behrman. Greenberg has a knack for creating characters who consistently surprise us without contradicting what we already know about them, and he can spin a narrative that has the richness of a novel. Who would expect so much from an apparently low-key comedy about an adult-education writing class?

The class is being held in Levittown, Long Island, during the fall and winter of 1967. It is taught by Aaron Port, a frustrated novelist who faces the world with a permanently furrowed brow, as if the news -- any news, anytime -- is surely going to be terrible. As the play begins, he has been presented with a distinctly unpromising set of students, all for fifteen dollars a week, minus train fare. There's the aggressively cheery Frieda Cohen ("You may have seen my house on the way over. It's the one with the well-known garden: If you haven't seen it in person, it was featured in Newsday."). And there's Anna Cantor, whose writerly invention does not extend beyond announcing, repeatedly, that Venice is "a city of contrasts." Jack Hassenpflug comes with a clinically depressed demeanor and an interest in rehashing, in a hundred words or less, his involvement in the Battle of Overloon in World War II. Despite his bizarre affect, Marc Adams announces he is working on a thousand-page magnum opus; he promises to bring a sample paragraph from it to class -- someday. It isn't lost on Aaron that, for most of them, his course was their second choice. As Midge Braverman announces as she breezes into the room, "French Cooking was full!"

There's also Joan Dellamond -- withdrawn, jittery, afraid of speaking up -- and who, we learn, was basically housebound for seven years. At first glance, she is no more promising than the others, but Aaron is drawn to her, especially when she tells him, "I'm not here because French Cooking wouldn't have me or there were no seats left in Current Affairs in the World and Elsewhere; I am not here for the coffee breaks and the malice. I'm here because I need to write." And write she does, presenting to the class short stories that are shocking in their brevity and violence. Joan isn't just talented; she's a destabilizing force, admitting into the room intimations of bitterness and dissatisfaction that constitute a massive affront to Frieda, who, having escaped her crowded, poverty-stricken life on Manhattan's Lower East Side, won't hear a word against Long Island living. And, as Joan gains confidence, she doesn't hesitate to throw herself at Aaron, despite the fact that both are married.

Given the way the students act, they probably should be getting credits in psychology, not literature, for the class operates more like a therapy group, with Frieda firmly established as queen bee. At the conclusion of Anna's sugary Venice report, Frieda pointedly asks, "Where's the hatred?" -- and all but demands that Anna reveal the details of her embattled marriage. Aaron's attraction to Joan is not lost on the others, especially Frieda, who has a highly personal reason for hating one of Joan's stories. And so it goes, with plenty of gossip, more than a few grievances, odd personal revelations, and one couple teetering on the edge of an affair -- but not much instruction in the art of writing.

Under Terry Kinney's direction, a fine cast brings this eccentric menagerie to life -- including the oddball triangle at the play's center. Josh Radnor's Aaron is eaten up with spurned ambition and self-loathing; his slow-burn reactions to his students' paltry offerings are priceless, as is the sight of him warily treading around the alarmingly eager Joan. Elizabeth Reaser hides Joan's furious drive behind a tremulous façade, revealing her true, deeply ambitious self by degrees. She offers scant information about her apparently bizarre marriage beyond commenting that only after several years did she realize Emily Dickinson -- not her husband -- had coined the phrase about hope being the thing with feathers. Yet, for all her apparent reticence, she certainly takes charge in attempting to seduce the skittish Aaron. As Frieda, Randy Graff is a smiling, affable bully, ready to subject to her withering scorn anyone who doesn't fit into her worldview. "More often, I am the cause of fear in others. Not the other way around," she happily concedes. "What can I tell you, Mr. Port? I'm a conqueror." She treats Joan, who presumes to be unhappy in the suburbs, as her personal bête noire, examining her like a biological specimen and demanding, "What does Levittown offer you? And what do you offer in return?"

There are also fine contributions from Maddie Corman, who, horrified at the possibility that Aaron might write about her and the others, announces, "I don't want to suddenly find I'm 'grotesque' in a Literary Guild selection." The always-delightful Julie Halston charms as Midge, especially when recalling her one encounter with Abraham Levitt, the founder of Levittown, who, producing a tape measure, announced that her grass was too long. Frank Wood is both truculent and touching as Jack, offering up ever-briefer versions of his war story, apparently the only event of note in his life. Michael Oberholtzer's Marc is plausibly damaged, looking blank and repeating whatever people say to him; he also has a sharp comic cameo as a friend of Aaron's, a published novelist who loves to drop tidbits about John Updike's lumbago and who announces that, in his next work, "I'm finally confronting my memories of Korea," quickly adding, "Of course, I'm using Korea as a metaphor for Vietnam."

The action unfolds in a schoolroom, so convincingly designed by Richard Hoover that you'll swear you can smell the chalk dust; it is framed by discreetly rendered projections, by Darrel Maloney, of rows of tract houses, lawns, and other details of suburban life. David Weiner's lighting is tasteful and understated -- he does some lovely pattern work on the stage floor -- and keyed to various times of day. He also provides such effects as a chase to simulate the passing of a train. Sarah J. Holden's costumes include some fabulously evocative ensembles for Frieda, Anna, and Midge, who never leave the house without being totally turned out; they contrast beautifully with Joan's unglamorous jeans-and sweaters look. The sound design, by Rob Milburn and Michael Bodeen, includes such effects as birdsong, passing trains, and winter winds.

Greenberg supplies a fast-forward sequence in which we learn of the characters' fates, which involve a number of twists, reversals, and odd connections, and all of which stem from the repercussions of a seemingly innocuous writing class -- he even ties The Babylon Line to his play from last season, Our Mother's Brief Affair -- before returning to the denouement between Aaron and Joan. Greenberg builds a marvelously complete universe with his characters; it's a world that, as 1967 unfolds, will be forever changed. The year arguably marks Levittown's last stand as an ideal of American life, and, for all his irony and wit, Greenberg captures it in its twilight glory. -- David Barbour