Frame 312

Reviewed by Holly Bartges

Next Stage’s production Frame 312 playing at The Phoenix Theatre torked me big time, and that’s the most polite way I can say it.

Not because of Next Stage’s production, which is outstanding.

Not because of the set, designed by Gene Kato, which works wonderfully separating decades, coming together in memory.

Not because of Kato’s direction, which is carefully constructed and executed.

Not because of the cast, which flies with expertise.

Rather, because of the way the play, written by Keith Reddin ends, leaving me wondering: if this could happen in the imagination of one writer, what makes us think it couldn’t happen for real, and how many times could it have happened? This is, after all, the point of the highly-developed and well-written play.

Frame 312 covers a period of time in the 1990s in the backyard of Lynette’s house. A family reunion is about to take place with her daughter Stephanie, son, Tom, and his wife, Marie.

Flashback’s to the 1960s takes us into the memories of Lynette when she worked at Life Magazine during the time JFK was shot in Dallas.

With the separated stage and the scenes alternating between the 1990s and 1960s, the cast captivates a mysterious chill throughout the production, going above and beyond the fact the furnace wasn’t working.

Susan d’Autremont plays Lynnette in the ’90s and Laura Norman plays her in the ’60s. Both have reason to be nervous and uneasy. Norman portrays her as a young secretary entrusted with a secret, shared only by two other people her boss Mr. Graham (Jim Hunt) and Roy (Josh Hartman).

D’Autremont carries that nervousness for 30 years covered from raising a family, living in suburbia, being a housewife. Now she struggles over a gnawing decision.

For 30 years, she’s had in her possession, the original film bought by Life Magazine of JFK being shot. Having watched the 27-second tape hundreds of times, she is very much aware the tape shown on television has been tampered with. Now she has decided to show it to her children hoping to make a final decision.

With bushy frizzy hair, Jennifer Forsyth becomes a knockout as Stephanie. Smart-mouth, critical, sarcastic, on medication for depression, Stephanie shows little respect for her mother, letting it be known she is anything but looking forward to being with her brother, Tom. The juxtaposition to the two characters is wonderfully contracted. Hartwell provides a Tom who is more uptight than an E-string on a violin, over his head financially, desperate to borrow money from his mother to buy a bigger house he can ill afford, morally straight on the outside and a mess inside. There in the middle sits Lynette, calm between the two, responding to them as a wise mother, torn inside over what she possesses.

Hartwell plays several characters with definite distinctions as Roy, Agent Barry, and a Conductor. He handles each character as though they were the most important person on the stage very unlike himself.

Janelle Christie, likewise, plays multiple characters with strong definition. As Marie, Tom’s wife, she is prim, proper, patronizing to Lynette, drips with politeness, and pushes for control which she is never allowed to take. Christie also plays Margie, a friend of Lynette’s in the ’60s, and Doris, a woman Lynette meets on a train conveying their own strength and place.

After Roy, Mr. Graham, and Lynette see the film, Graham asks Lynette to take it to Washington DC to give to the FBI providing another set of fearful circumstances for the young Lynette. What if someone knows she has the film? What if someone tries to steal it? What if she is taken hostage? Hat ifÉ?

Hunt plays Graham with a sense of cool collectedness showered with a tinge of his own mystery. This is definitely a very shrewd man who knows what he’s doing. By playing a fatherly boss he can hide his own deception without raising any suspicions on Lynette’s part. With expertise, Hunt demonstrates the double-side twist in his brain especially when he asks her to keep the film. Roy has since died. Graham will be leaving Life Magazine after being diagnosed with an illness, wanting to spend more time with his family. Little does she suspect, at the time, what Graham has already done. Perfect timing for the cunning Graham, Lynnette is about to leave the magazine, get married, and move to the suburbs. She will be the only one left who saw the original film, and who is going to believe her? A fact Graham understands; a fact it will take years for Lynnette to figure out.

Thought-provoking, especially for those of us who remember precisely where we were and what we were doing when the news shot out over the air waves JFK had been shot. Mind-boggling, especially now, when so much deceitfulness continues to go on within government ranks on all levels. Throughout the play Reddin weaves a goodly amount of humor between young Lynette and Hartwell’s Agent Barry. Nervous and suspicious she wants to be certain he is who he says he is. The situation isn’t funny to him, but it definitely is to the audience. The antics between Tom and Stephanie come across with honest “funniness.” Playing their characters straight, they only reiterate what goes on in thousands of homes across the country with sibling rivalry.

The connection between Lynette and Stephanie at the end is a warm, tender moment between a mother and daughter finding surprising common ground and understanding.

Frame 312 has it all: laughability, mystery, deceitfulness, political propaganda, seriousness, piquing the imagination with unwanted questions, extraordinarily well-defined, believable characters, matched with secure, defining direction.

This will be a difficult play to forget. Once the question has been formed in the brain, it will be impossible to send it into another realm.

And what does Lynette do that is so maddening? It is a crime the run had to be so short. Demand it to return. The demand worked for Assassins returning this summer to the Aurora Fox. Lynette’s final decision is a tragedy, even though she knows, and the audience knows, she has no other choice. Who is going to believe a suburban housewife?

If I rated plays superficially from 1 to 4, I’d have to give it a 10.