David Hare’s The Vertical Hour was mounted for just three performances on September 18 and 19 as the most recent installment in SLO REP‘s staged reading series Ubu’s Other Shoe.
The two-hour play rolls out as a confusing and somewhat sad story of two juxtaposed people who have an unlikely meeting that tests their values and changes the direction of one of their lives.
This production, directed by Suzy Newman, showcased great acting talent applied to a watery script; it might appear to celebrate the hippy ideology of free love and the abandonment of societal values, except for one character. Nadia (played by Katherine Appel) is an uptight professor who would rather dictate belief to her students than entertain their ideas (or admiration). She has an intense conviction that makes her character compelling.
While Nadia intrigues us, her opposite is a complete dud, and yet another tiresome stock character. Oliver (played by John Pillow) is a washed-up English doctor and ’60s throwback. The conversation between the two characters at a quaint country home in rural England is the heart of the play.
‘The Vertical Hour’ is about opposite extremes, with no middle ground aside from one midnight parley like a night-time meeting between King Priam and Achilles.”
Nadia comes with her fiancé Philip from the United States to meet Oliver, Philip’s estranged and philandering father. Aryton Parham as Philip plays perhaps the most empathetic character in the play—a physical therapist and English expatriot living in the the U.S. who has charmed Nadia with his blah normalness.
Oliver might garner a boomer audience’s sympathy with his hunger for the good old hippy days, but the rest of the audience is tortuously subjected to his extolling the wonders of free sex and his spotty quotes of English poets when he has nothing to say for himself—which is most of the play.
The acidic Nadia actually transforms into a fuzzy and lovable character when paired with such a nauseating ghoul of the “free-love” era.
The show-stealing standout star in this production is Appel. We’re drawn in at first by her grave cheekbones, pointed nose, and darkly recessed eyes; she steps smoothly between humor, angry conviction, and most significantly a volatile grace. She commands the stage even in bare feet.
The Vertical Hour is about opposite extremes, with no middle ground aside from one midnight parley like a night-time meeting between King Priam and Achilles. In the end the characters only seem at peace in their own excessive pursuits.
The Ubu’s Other Shoe staged reading series will continue to be provocative, thanks to artistic director Michel Siebrass and his commitment to plays we wouldn’t otherwise get to experience. But we have to wait until the end of January for The Guys, the tale of a firefighter captain and enlisted writer who together explore the mass destruction and losses of 9/11.