Family affair

Lynn Redgrave looks at life with mother in The Mandrake Root

By Brad Rosenstein

The Mandrake Root.

IN HER FIRST play, Shakespeare for My Father, Lynn Redgrave dealt in solo autobiographical form with her difficult relationship with her father, Michael Redgrave. With her second, The Mandrake Root, a largely fictional, multiactor play, Redgrave shifts the focus to her mother, Rachel Kempson. Workshopped and revised since its premiere last year at Connecticut's Long Wharf Theatre, the play is making its local bow at San Jose Repertory Theatre with Redgrave again its star.

After the death of her father, Sally (Cynthia Mace) brings her mother, Rose (Redgrave), to southern California from England. Rose's shaky mental state begins to collapse, and she ranges freely across her past, revealing aspects of her life that Sally had only suspected. She tells Sally that her father, Robert, was gay, and despite genuine love between him and Rose, their relationship left her lonely and sexually frustrated. Rose turned to Robert's married friend Alistair (Keith Langsdale), who became her longtime lover on condition that she never leave Robert. It is left to Sally to unravel the years of hidden truths and painful accommodations.

The play begins in conventional, near-sitcom territory as it introduces us to dotty, acid-tongued Rose and forbearing, troubled Sally but picks up steam as Rose's youthful memories take over. The encounters between Rose and Alistair are piquant and touching, and Rose's attacks of guilt and conscience are affectingly realized. Things take a soapy turn in the reconciliations of mother and daughter, and there are lapses in structure and clarity throughout. If Redgrave is still finding her way as a dramatist, she has a theater veteran's grasp of character and action, and although the play's literary allusions fail to resonate, the language is sharp and crisp.

Best of all, this production is blessed with Redgrave's talents as an actor, which are simply extraordinary. She seamlessly transitions from a lost old snob to a fresh young woman in love, and she lets us see elements of each in the other. Mace is also first rate, finding nuances in the underwritten Sally, and Langsdale is splendid as the fractured Alistair. Director Warner Shook sensitively captures the play's haunted tone, and he stages the piece with enormous fluidity on Michael Olich's versatile if bland set. Lighting designer Rui Rita's washes of color help enormously, and Dan Moses Schreier's compelling original music gives the evening drive and focus. The Mandrake Root is much more than a mere star vehicle, but at this stage in its development, I'm awfully glad Redgrave is there.

Fractured 'Legion'

It was a week for plays about gay men in heterosexual marriages: Legion tackles the same topic exclusively, this time from the man's point of view. In Hal Corley's play, premiering at New Conservatory Theatre Center, the seemingly happily married, hard-riving Jonah (Randel Hart) and his married-with-children acquaintance Sylvester (Jeff Castle) are soon all over each other at a rainy Super Bowl barbecue. As they secretively pursue an affair, Jonah fiercely rejects the truth of his own nature, while Sylvester slowly grows to accept his. Over the course of the play's 13-year span, we meet a number of other men who are similarly tormented by their double lives.

The play begins well, immersing us in Sylvester and Jonah's awkward negotiations and vulnerabilities, but soon (actually a span of years in the play's fuzzy time frame) their relationship is over, and the focus shifts to other "members of the club." Some, like the wildly promiscuous Burton (Markham Miller), are out to everyone but their wives, while others, like the men's group leader Toby (Dennis Parks), advocate honesty while being less than forthcoming themselves. Although Sylvester's evolution is the main thread, and Jonah remains a persistent presence, the play seems oddly hesitant to explore its points through their compelling relationship and settles for a more prismatic exploration of the issue.

Corley is a talented writer who knows how to get dramatic sparks flying, but the evening is dominated by the flamboyantly funny Burton, who rushes into the vacuum of the Sylvester-Jonah relationship and takes over the play. It doesn't help matters that Miller is so spot-on, while Castle is practically acting-impaired. Hart does fine, multidimensional work as the coiled spring Jonah. Christopher Jenkins's direction has energy but is content to settle for broad choices even when the script offers opportunities to dig deeper. Ultimately Legion, like The Mandrake Root, seems a bit stymied by its own collisions of expectation and desire.

'The Mandrake Root.' Through Feb. 24. Tues.-Fri., 8 p.m.; Sat., 2 and 7 p.m.; Sun., 3 and 8 p.m., San Jose Repertory Theatre, 101 Paseo de San Antonio, San Jose. $20-$44. (408) 367-7255. 'Legion.' Through April 6. Wed.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Feb. 10, 24, March 10, 24, and 31, 2 p.m. New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, S.F. $18-$35. (415) 861-8972.