Review: The Pearl Merchant

Erin Layton as Hannah and Bryan Taylor as Tom in The Pearl Merchant (photo credit: Christopher Davis)

Pearl Merchant Fails to Sell its Themes

By Lauren Yarger
Some great themes about adoption, faith and prejudice are at the heart of “The Pearl Merchant,” the first full-length production from the Threads Theater Company with a goal of presenting plays that spark conversations about faith and contribute to cultural renewal. Minor irritations, however, like those that produce cultured gems, shift the focus and keep the production from becoming a natural pearl.

Painter Hannah (Erin Layton), unable to have children, wants to adopt her student whose mother is dying, but her husband, Tom (Bryan Taylor, and mother-in-law, Elisabeth (Jillian Lindig), don’t think it’s a good idea for reasons that aren’t known to Hannah. Nenna (Nehassaiu DeGannes), a mysterious visitor, raises questions about whether the white couple has thought through all of the consequences of adopting this black child.

Like its own forced metaphor about nurturing trees, the play (from first-time playwright Cecilia Brie Walker) suffers from too many plantings without a lot of thought given to the roots. Is this a play about adoption, trust, racism, ghosts, guilt, Christian faith or the dynamics of working through a difficult stretch of marriage? Without clear direction, the play presents like a row of all of those seeds watered by a bunch of inserts to try to get them to grow together: “insert wise advice from mother here;” “insert thought about God here;” “insert explanation for ghost here.”

Intended “surprise” plot twists seem telegraphed well in advance and none of the themes ever is brought to a “pearl-like” conclusion. The lack of fluidity translates to the performances where only DeGannes seems comfortable in the skin of her character despite some nice blocking and attention to detail from director Misti B. Wills.

April Bartett’s scenic design stands out, though. She transforms the tiny stage (The Space on West 43rd Street) into two defined areas: Elisabeth’s mountain home with baskets, plants and detailed country accents downstage and the “bald,” an outdoor patch up on the mountain where Hannah likes to paint (as the audience enters the theater, she is seen painting in the shadows for a nice effect) upstage. Bartlett’s skill makes the two separate areas, on stage together throughout the almost two-hour one act, work despite a couple of exits from the bald through wooden doors. A glowing pearl also is a nice effect.

“The Pearl Merchant” was produced with help from Gifted Hands, a Manhattan volunteer program that offers recreation and healing through art, design, and craft classes for a range of populations, including at-risk youth, the homeless, people living with HIV/AIDS, and the elderly.

Christians also might like to know:
• Contains language

• God’s name is taken in vain

• The play contains some confused theology. An atheist who tells us she doesn't believe in God tells us she knows she's not going to hell, “thank God”....

• There is a ghost and Elisabeth, a Christian, offers the following as a possible explanation: “There are places the Celts recognized, where the barrier between the world of matter and the world of spirit is thin. ‘Thin places,’ they call them. Mysteries happen there. And when their children passed through the hills here, of course, many of them stayed. Well, I think something dwells here that is like that ancient thinness.”

• Tom, a seminary professor, is concerned that if the truth about his past comes out, his career might suffer, but seems oblivious to the fact that a guy who has sex with a former atheist girlfriend while engaged to someone else, fathers a child for whom he doesn’t take responsibility and then keeps all of this from his wife might not be the best candidate for tenure at a seminary.

• Threads Theater Company began in 2004 when a group of theater professionals at Redeemer Presbyterian Church began to discuss the connection between faith and theater. The group created a staged reading and discussion series and established a new play development program.