Coming of age stories are usually seen through hazy golden filters that make everything seem more romantic than it was. They are also mostly told through male voices, which is why it was quite a delight to see how democratic A.R. Gurney’s What I Did Last Summer tried to be with its female characters, rightfully making them not only the true leads of the show, but also entirely self aware beings that know the story would be nothing without them. We could establish that the plot circles around a 14-year-old boy named Charlie (Noah Galvin) who initially tells us “this is a play about me”, before we meet the women in his life: his mother Grace (Carolyn McCormick), his older sister Elsie (Kate McGonigle), the girl he has a crush on named Bonny (Juliet Brett), and the eccentric Anna Trumbull (Kristine Nielsen) a bohemian outcast who lives on the outskirts of the lake town where Charlie and his family are spending the summer of 1945.
At one point or another, all the women in the play will address the audience to point out how this play is also about them, and some defiantly suggest that if it’s not, it should be about them. Gurney’s ode to women is so full of love, that it seems he was unable to make the story all about himself - What I Did Last Summer is supposed to be largely autobiographical - and ended up mostly talking about how these women shaped who he became. The central conflict occurs when the rebellious Charlie takes a job working for Anna, who locals call “the pig woman”, igniting the wrath of his mother who wants nothing else than to see him become a true gentleman. Charlie’s father is away in the Pacific and remains a ghostly presence throughout, adding to the play’s emphasis on the importance of matriarchies during WWII.
Even though Grace and Anna don’t share many scenes together, the tension about how they feel about each other’s role in Charlie’s life makes for a fascinating study of contrasting methods of female empowerment. Grace chose a family life and as a homemaker has become the most powerful person in the household, Anna resents marriage and looks down at it, but we also get a sense that at one point she too wanted a family. Similarly there are moments in which we understand Grace would give up everything if only she could find the solace Anna finds in her freedom.
Both characters are played by actresses at the top of their games, McCormick bringing poise and heartbreak to Grace, and the always spectacular Nielsen turning Anna into a rich, complex figure; a woman who could’ve easily been a “symbol” but instead becomes a true, brilliantly fleshed out human being. McGonigle is lovely and funny as the irritable Elsie, and Brett is pure enchantment as Bonny.
However it’s true that the play will most likely be discussed for the star making performance by Gavin, who takes hold of the stage in a truly electric way. With the comedic timing of a Marx sibling and the quiet volatility of Sal Mineo, he turns Charlie into a lovable hero who we can’t help but root for, in spite of his obvious shortcomings.
The play is directed by Jim Simpson who cleverly recurs to Brechtian devices and invites us to notice the theatricality of what’s unfolding onstage. Actors carry simple props they then turn into something else, making for a powerful statement about the magic of theatre and also the strange, unpredictable process of remembering. The simple, but effective scenic design by Michael Yeargan turns the stage into a blank page and the actors quite literally into moving words, through a clever use of rear projections we often see hundreds of scattered letters that then begin to form actual images, adding yet another - almost metaphysical - layer about how the world might very well exist only because we have the words to describe it. A charming production if there ever was one, What I Did Last Summer forgoes facile sentimentality for a clever use of meta. It’s an unforgettable show about choosing what memories to treasure.
