Broadway Theater Review: Collected Stories

Loss of Focus Scatters a Dynamic Play
By Lauren Yarger
The first act of Manhattan Theatre Club’s Collected Stories starring Linda Lavin as a celebrated writer and Sara Paulson as her wannabe assistant is fascinating, especially if you’re a writer, but everything so skillfully “collected” in that first act is lost and scattered in the second as the actors become unfocused.

Lavin is Ruth Steiner, an eccentric, but likable writer/professor who takes a chance on student Lisa Morrison (Paulson) who shows some talent, not to mention unbridled excitement about working with an author of Ruth’s stature.

Lisa runs the show from Ruth’s book-lined apartment (Santo Loquasto, set design) and when her first work is published, the relationship between the two women starts to morph into a friendship as well as mentor/mentee. Lonely Ruth opens up and shares her “shining moment” in life: an affair with her older writer/mentor.

As Lisa’s career takes off, she’s hailed as the “voice of a generation” and in a role switch, Ruth, failing in health and sinking into obscurity, asks her for input on her latest manuscript. The relationship starts to deteriorate, in part because Lisa’s new novel is based largely on stories she stole from Ruth.

The dynamic between the two women is fascinating, the work of playwright Donald Margulies (whose Time Stands Still played Broadway this year and is scheduled for a revisit next fall). We can’t wait to see what will happen beween these writers. When the curtain goes up for Act 2, however, everything previously “collected” unravels. An intense show down should take place between the women, but it’s almost as though Director Lynne Meadow stepped out at intermission and the actors no longer are quite sure where their characters should go.

We’re not sure whether Ruth is just a little hurt or furious or whether Lisa is a ruthless opportunist or just clueless and self absorbed. We really need to know for the play to work. The fault is not Margulies’ – all of the right dialogue is there, but without focus, it ends up sounding like two actors reciting lines and the confrontation – if that’s what you can call what happens -- is void of depth and intensity.

It’s disappointing. I really wanted to see Lavin go for the jugular. Unfortunately, she was too “collected.”

Collected Stories plays at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, 261 West 47th St., NYC through June 13. Discounted tickets are available for friends of Masterwork Productions here.

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