Fandom Mania

I had the opportunity to see Geraint in Poetic License at 59E59 Theatres while I happened to be in New York City. So I thought I might as well post a review here.

Written by Jack Canfora, Poetic License begins with Katherine (Natalie Kuhn) and Edmund (Ari Butler) climbing through a window into the living room of her parents. It’s the eve of her father’s birthday and Katherine wants to seize the opportunity to introduce her new boyfriend to her parents. Edmund appears to be a pleasant young man who is appropriately nervous to meet Katherine’s father John Greer (Geraint Wyn Davies), a distinguished professor of literature and Pulitzer Prize winning poet who is on the verge of being named Poet Laureate. His academic career has been largely managed by his manipulative wife Diane (Liza Vann) who is hoping to use the family gathering as appropriate background for a PBS interview that she has arranged in view of the expected Poet Laureate appointment.

When the parents return home it becomes evident that Katherine is clearly Daddy’s girl, while there’s palpable tension between her and her mother. Once Edmund is alone with John, his manners change abruptly when he confronts him with allegations that John’s poetry wasn’t his own but plagiarized from Edmund’s deceased mother with whom John had a relationship years ago. As proof he presents a journal from his mother that contains everything that John has written. John contradicts, stating that the journal and his works were similar because they had lived together and his poems were a result from that period. He states that Edmund has inherited a mental disease from his mother who should never have had children.

It turns out that Edmund has only sought Katherine’s acquaintance in order to get to her father. Katherine’s world is crushed when she finds out that she has only been used by Edmund and that there are severe cracks in the high pedestal on which she has placed her father.

The play becomes very intense when the protagonists argue heatedly back and forth. Geraint gives a superb performance as John. It’s fascinating to watch how the tension bubbles up in him before it is released in scalding words that deny Edmund’s accusations like an erupting volcano. In the end, the truth remains subject to the viewer’s interpretation.

The theatre was very small and intimate. We were in the second row which was like sitting in the centre of the living room in which the raw and unsettling drama unfolded. Although the play ran only for 80 min without intermission, it was one of those plays that keep your mind busy long afterwards.