That cutest couple

Traffic must be light these days in Minneapolis, with half its population here in Sacramento. More precisely, these Twin Cities refugees are trodding boards at Sacramento Theatre Company, bringing to town The Pavilion, Minneapolis playwright Craig Wright’s cosmic musings on time, choices, fate and love.

STC’s artistic director Peggy Shannon pirated director Bain Boehlke, the three-person cast, and most of the production crew from Minneapolis’ Jungle Theatre for this production. It makes sense, since Boehlke directed this 2000 Pulitzer Prize nomination’s debut at the Jungle.

The Pavilion is a story about relationships, regrets, rekindling and reconciliation, all bathed in the poetic words of the author. What seems small—a 20-year high-school reunion where “the cutest couple in high school” will see each other for the first time after a wrenching breakup, becomes a study of human longings and the mysteries of time.

The play begins on a bare stage, where the Narrator (Stephen d’Ambrose) walks to a single gaslight and begins to speak, simply saying, “This is how the universe begins.” In a beautiful passage, he starts with a single raindrop and expands its existence to nature, the universe, the history of mankind, and finally to a single man standing alongside him. “And at the center of the everything in the universe, there is you,” he finishes, gesturing to Peter (Terry Hempleman).

Peter has come to the Pavilion, site of his high-school reunion, in hopes of reconnecting with Kari (Amy McDonald), his high-school sweetheart. Kari wants to avoid Peter and the pain he brings. The two spend the night dancing around each other, and finally with each other, all underneath the words of the Narrator who also acts as stage manager, philosopher, ringmaster, omnipresent Creator, and a cast of fellow classmates.

The strength of The Pavilion is the lovely language interspersed with witty give and takes. It’s a play chock-full with words, beautiful philosophical and lyrical passages mixed in with witty verbal repartees.

The shortcoming of the play is that all the metaphysical musings and poetic pining center around a rather trite story of a teen romance gone awry. We are told the sad story, one that surely haunts the two protagonists, but on the human drama scale, it does’t really register as tragic enough for the play’s overall cosmic hand-wringing.

But along with the lush language, what makes us care is the cast. Center is the engaging performance by d’Ambrose as the Narrator, who also does multiple minor characters (with some over-playing of the women). He has a wonderful way of caressing the words and directing the action of Hempleman and McDonald, who are convincing as former high-school sweethearts, the walking wounded and life survivors.