We see the water before we jump in, and are affected by its image before we feel it on our skin.
So then, did seeing the water let us understand the swim better? Or did it somehow take away from the experience? Put more generally, what exactly is seeing, and what is understanding? Does seeing enhance our understanding of a thing — or can it limit it?
These are the questions posed to startling effect by the Brian Friel play “Molly Sweeney,” currently at the Pear Avenue Theatre through March 16. In it, Friel, currently Ireland’s most famous and prodigious playwright, presents a variation of themes he continually returns to — identity and alienation — through the story of a blind woman set in 1990s Ireland.
Structured around three central characters — Molly Sweeney, her husband, and her doctor — the play is told entirely through these characters’ monologues, as they slowly reveal a strange, intricate and dynamic story from their interweaving personal perspectives.
Played with incredible warmth and verve by Pear founder and artistic director Diane Tasca, Molly Sweeney is a middle-aged woman, blind practically since birth, who (being persuaded by both her husband and doctor), undergoes a surgery which temporarily restores her sight.
What ensues is a moving journey through an unfamiliar landscape of color and shape, light and dark, which forces her to completely reestablish her relationship to the world, and question whether she did not lose more than she gained.
It cannot be understated how compelling Tasca is in the role. Anyone looking for a reason to see “Molly Sweeney” should go simply for that: The chance to see a first-rate actress like Tasca spread her wings in a genuinely complex and thoughtful role.
Using a melodic Irish-lilt of an accent, Tasca subtly guides her character through the journey, transforming herself from confident blind person, to confused and lonely seeing person, and finally to someone living in resignation — perhaps peace — at the tenuous border between the two.
In a standout scene in the play, Molly describes what it feels like to go swimming as a blind person. Recounting the sensual, cool embrace of the water, she thinks that no seeing person could ever experience such joy when they swim. Tasca delivers this monologue with such passion and tenderness that one is utterly convinced of the truth of Molly’s words.
John Baldwin and Troy Johnson, who play Molly’s eye surgeon and husband, respectively, also turn in first-rate performances that veer crazily between sorrow and humor, wisdom and hubris. All three characters inhabit the stage at the same time, and director Dean Burgi does a skillful job at letting them prowl and pace around each other without interference, despite The Pear’s diminutive space.
Burgi is also the set designer, and has the unique challenge of decorating a single stage so that it qualifies as the Sweeney home, the doctor’s office, and the setting of innumerable flashbacks in time. Burgi is wise to leave most of the stage empty, save a few chairs and a table, which allows the performances to shine, and also seems to underscore the abiding theme: How important is that which we see? Is there not just as much truth, if not more, in words and sounds and feeling?
In the case of “Molly Sweeney,” the answer is a resounding yes.
INFORMATION:
What: The Pear Avenue Theatre presents “Molly Sweeney,” by Brian Friel
When: 8 p.m. showings, and 2 p.m. Sundays, now through March 16
Where: 1220 Pear Avenue, Unit K, Mountain View
Cost: $20 general, $12 for students and seniors
Info: visit www.thepear.org
