Williamstown Theater Festival, Williamstown, MA.
through August 10, 2024
by Jarice Hanson
 |
| Photo by Arden Dickson |
The name of David Ives’ newest play at the Williamstown Theater Festival is an enigma. “Pamela Palmer” is the title, and while the name tells the audience nothing about the play, the title is perfect.
The character named Pamela Palmer is seemingly perfect. She’s blonde, beautiful, happily married to a man “in the money industry,” and has a strong spiritual life. Her problem is that something seems wrong with this perfect life, and that makes her anxious. To help her figure out why she feels impending doom, she hires a private eye. She doesn’t expect to be attracted to him, but as the story unfolds in this 85-minute one-act, the perfect life is upended with surprise turns for Pamela, her husband, the private eye, and Pamela’s lower middle-class mother from Akron.
David Ives’ writing is heavy on dialogue and often peppered with genuinely funny lines, but the mood of the piece is a spoof on the noir detective theme. Billed as an “existential romance,” the overarching message is that perfection is an illusion and conspicuous consumption can destroy lives.
What makes the piece work well is the extraordinary collaboration of Ives and Director Walter Bobbie. The two have a long history of collaborating on projects and the harmony they’ve developed shows in this work. Bobbie’s direction in the intimate Centerstage Theater is elegant.
Added to their exploration of such broadly conceived ideas about God, happiness, and anxiety, is a very talented cast that walks the fine line between reality and fiction.
Tina Benko plays Pamela, drawing on traditions of noir and the “beautiful blond” essential to a good detective story. Clark Gregg as the private investigator is seething, sexy, and earthy as gumshoes are. In the role of the erudite husband is Max Gordon Moore who plays the part with a British accent and mannerisms reminiscent of David Niven. Becky Ann Baker portrays Pamela’s cancer-surviving, lower middle-class mother. The actress fills the stage with her presence and provides a key to unlocking Pamela’s past. These actors handle the playwright's dialog masterfully. In one rapid, talky scene between Benko and Moore, the two actually seem to produce electricity. It’s an amazing scene and aptly shows the genius lurking behind the dialog, direction, and actors’ abilities.
This is a play that leaves audience members scratching their heads at the end. There's lots to ponder. It is not neatly wrapped up, but rather, continues the enigmatic metaphor. For those who enjoy this type of ambiguity, "Pamela Palmer" will please. However, as Williamstown’s big production of the summer, it may leave viewers wanting more.
