Chick, The Great Osram

Three Stars

Location: Hartford Stage Company, 50 Church Street, Hartford.

Production: By David Frimm. Directed by Michael Wilson. Scenic design by Tony Straiges. Costume design by David C. Woolard. Lighting design by Rui Rita. Original music and sound design by John Gromada. Magic consultant, Marc Gilday. Production stage manager Gregory R. Covert. Associate producer and dramaturg, Christopher Baker. Associate artistic director, Jeremy B. Cohen. Production manager, Deborah Vandergrift.

Running time: 90 minutes with no intermission.

Show Times: Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Sunday (Oct. 28 only) at 7:30 p.m.; Friday and Saturday at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m., with Wednesday matinees on Oct. 31 and Nov. 7. Show runs through Nov. 11. No evening shows on Wednesday, Oct. 31 or Sunday, Nov. 11.

Sunday, Oct. 28 2 p.m. matinee and 7:20 p.m. shows will have a text screen display of dialog simultaneous with performance for deaf and hard-of-hearing audiences. “Afterwords” discussion after the show led by artistic staff and actors on Oct. 23, Oct. 30 and Nov. 7 matinee. Sunday afternoon discussion, Nov. 4 with associate producer Christopher Baker and special guest after the matinee performance.

Tickets: $37.50- $68.50. Call 527-5151 or visit their Web site at www.hartfordstage.org.


ACTOR…CHARACTER
Robert Sella…. Chick
Enid Graham…. Helen

What happens when an immovable object meets an irrepressible force? Plenty of fireworks, frustration, and in the end, a legacy that is remarkable.


So often museums seem to be institutions of the old and dead. But there was a time in 1927 when a young and fearless visionary, J. Everett Austin, Jr., known as “Chick,” came to Hartford from Boston’s Fogg Museum to change all that, when he was appointed the director of the Wadsworth Athenaeum at the youthful age of 27.

Ah, the fearless audacity and confidence of youth. Austin dragged the oldest museum in the country, from the ancient stuffy past to the cutting edge of modern art.

It was a trying time to be a museum director anywhere - first with the Great Depression, and then World War II. Despite his rocky relationship with the board of directors, Austin remained there for six years, until he was asked to leave in 1944, and then went to direct the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota, Fla.

But in that short six year span, what a legacy Austin left Hartford, particularly with modern art, but also accumulating important masterpeices by baroque painters such as the Italian artist, Caravaggio.

It is difficult to imagine today how the surrealist, cubist, and expressionist art of Pablo Picasso (who had his first America retrospective at the Wadsworth), Van Gogh, Piet Mondrian, Salvador Dali, Alexander Calder, Paul Klee, and Joan Miro could have been viewed with such violent and intense revolt, but that was exactly what Austin was up against.

Of course, looking back now, his views and vision have all been vindicated, but at the time modern art was so new it was disturbing and misunderstood for many.

From the representational paintings, which Austin called “dead art,” to paintings in the moment, in the “now,” with visions right out of the artists’ imagination – that was where Austin’s passion lay.

Austin’s vision was to have the Athenaeum to be the center of all the arts, not just paintings, but also music, theatre, dance and, during his brief tenure was able to get the International style Avery wing built onto the museum, with it’s theatre, that still stands today. To that end, he invited the Russia ballet impresario George Balanchine to Hartford, but Balanchine eventually chose to settle in New York.

The play is a chronological retelling of Chick’s life through three monologues, the first and last by Chick and the second by his wife, Helen. It felt like a lively, entertaining lecture on one man’s passion and vision of art, particularly modern art.

The first scene is set at Trinity College where Austin taught art history, the second is a living room at the couples’ home, which still stands on Scarborough Street in Hartford, and the third is a stage where Austin preformed as a magician, the Great Ostram.

If ever there was an instance of perfect casting, this is it. Robert Sella, who plays Chick, looks uncannily like Austin, whose photograph is part of the program, and inhabits the character of the passionate and flawed man with energy and wit.

Helen, well played by Sella’s real-life partner, Enid Graham, emerges as a sympathetic and unexpectedly non-conventional, but ultimately lonely woman, heartbreaking in love with a flamboyant, narcissistic, gay man.

There is nothing sadder than being in love alone.

Rarely has a play’s program been such an excellent companion to a play. Thoroughly researched, it not only has a synopsis of Austin’s life, along with a chronology of his career and life, but also includes major events of the time, from 1927 till Austin’s death from cancer in 1957.

There were times during the production when the imaginary third wall was broken, and the actors would speak directly to the audience, but then at other times they would lament that there was no one there to share their story, which felt confusing and awkward.

The third act, with Austin’s magic act and then his illness, had at times a silhouetted thorn bush branch lighting, which perhaps was an attempt to create a surrealist theater?, but ultimately was difficult to follow and felt disjointed.

In light of the financial difficulties the museum is struggling under currently, the timing of this play couldn’t be better. It is an entertaining reminder of the remarkable gift Austin’s legacy of vision and passion left us all.

And perhaps the museum's board of directors might want to take a page from history, while searching for their next museum director.