Ellen Lauren and Violeta Picayo portray two versions of the same character in first-ever revival of Evelyn Brown (A Diary) (photo by Steven Pisano)
EVELYN BROWN (A DIARY)
La MaMa Downstairs Theater
66 East Fourth St. between Second & Third Aves.
Friday – Sunday through June 4, $30
www.lamama.org
What does a dramaturg do? In the case of the first-ever revival of María Irene Fornés’s long-lost Evelyn Brown (A Diary), dramaturg Gwendolyn Alker spent five years reconstructing the script from fragments and interviews with members of the original cast and crew. The show opened in 1980 at Theater for the New City, just a few blocks from where it is now being remounted in a beautiful production continuing at La MaMa’s Downstairs Theater through June 4.
The one-act play was adapted from the handwritten journal of Evelyn Brown, a housekeeper in rural Melvin, New Hampshire. Brown, who was born in 1854 and died in 1934, details her daily activities in the 1909 notebook, which was given as a gift to Fornés but is now missing. The protagonist is portrayed by Ellen Lauren as Evelyn and Violeta Picayo as Evelyn Brown, her younger self, in roles originated by Margaret Harrington and Aileen Passloff, respectively. It opens with a blindfolded Evelyn standing front and center on Donald Eastman’s poignant set, which consists of numerous entries and a floor made of unfinished wooden paneling, the white doors contrasting with the dark hallways.
Evelyn removes the blindfold and starts reciting from memory (all spelling, punctuation, and capitalization is transcribed verbatim from the script): “January 1st. Here with Aunt Kate in Wolfboro. spent the day with her went down to Nat’s Store with her also to the Post Office. Got a letter from the Church in Alfred, also a New Years present from Dr. Gardner. in the evening Margaret and I called on Mrs. Davis and Mable.” Between each day, she does a little dance, shuffling her feet backward and forward in a rectangular shape, almost like a square dance but without a partner.
“Second. Cold this morn 6 below zero. have got to go to Melvin. Went over to Plumie’s and took dinner, then Wesley J- came for me and I came with him to Melvin. Stopped here to Charlie’s found the School Teacher still here.”
Evelyn Brown appears, initially watching from the back before joining Evelyn to make Mrs. Hiram Hill’s domestic bread. Both women wear patterned aprons over button-down shirts and long skirts; the costumes are by Fornés’s longtime designer Gabriel Berry. It’s an extremely funny scene as they carefully go through the recipe, only skipping the recommended time for boiling, rising, and baking the ingredients, which scatter across the table and floor as they slice, mash, and knead. It’s an excellent introduction to the next series of daily accounts, which highlight the monotony, drudgery, and sameness of their existence.
They write about doing the laundry. Sweeping and ironing. Preparing and serving meals. Doing the dishes. Dusting. Making beds. Going shopping. Tending to the baby. We learn tidbits about Mr. and Mrs. Porter, Aunt Lydia, Arthur Caverly, Mrs. Gordon, Lizzie, Rob Hunt, and Lillian, about who in the community has died and what the weather is.
María Irene Fornés revival at La Mama is a labor of love (photo by Steven Pisano)
Evelyn Brown and Evelyn “read” entries from empty prop journals as they sit at opposite sides of a long table, slowly climbing on top of it and twisting their bodies in experimental gestures and movements. Evelyn explains where all the cleaning supplies and tools are stored.
Evelyn Brown brings a chair onstage, sitting on it for a moment, then moving it to different locations and sitting on it again and again; Christina Watanabe’s lighting casts her in a glow that is part ghost, part superstar. Evelyn’s recorded voice is heard, taking us through the end of March and into April. (The sound design, which also features music by Mary Z. Cox, is by Jordan Bernstein.)
A long section involves the two women setting, moving, and resetting a series of tables with great precision, a symbol of time passing as the tables get bigger and smaller, including one for children.
The premiere of Evelyn Brown (A Diary) was directed by the Cuban-born Fornés, who died in Manhattan in 2018 at the age of eighty-eight, leaving behind a legacy that includes nine Obies and such plays as The Conduct of Life, Mud, The Danube, Fefu and Her Friends, Drowning, Molly’s Dream, and Pulitzer Prize finalist What of the Night? Revival director Alice Reagan (Fornes’s Promenade and Enter the Night) has done a superb job resurrecting the play, which documents what is/was called “women’s work” with grace and elegance.
Its inherent feminism is reminiscent of Chantal Akerman’s 1975 drama Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, about a widowed housewife going through the motions of a drab, repetitive existence, although the film is a humorless three and a half hour affair while Evelyn Brown (A Diary) is a potent seventy minutes, with its fair share of laughs. (However, both feature a potato-slicing scene.) It is also reminiscent of the extraordinary reimagining of Ping Chong’s Lazarus in the same theater this past fall, which also incorporated recorded dialogue, a protagonist with much of his face covered, an intricate table-setting scene, and a theme of otherness. In Evelyn Brown (A Diary), it’s like the Evelyns exist in their own space, separate from everyone else, othered.
Lauren (Chess Match No. 5, Radio Macbeth) and Picayo (Three Little Girls Down a Well, Sense and Sensibility) are outstanding, each one connecting with the audience in their own way. Picayo is more innocent and optimistic as Evelyn Brown, making eye contact with audience members and smiling and laughing more than Lauren, who, in the later version of the same character, does what she needs to do but lacks the hope of her younger self. She takes great care of her responsibilities, but she is far more practical.
The play is no mere time capsule of 1909 New Hampshire or 1980 New York City avant-garde theater; in 2023, it still feels fresh and relevant, radical and alive, in a gorgeous and tender production that deserves wide notice.