Quick Hit Theater Review: The Great God Pan

The Great God Pan
By Amy Herzog
Directed by Carolyn Cantor
Playwrights Horizons

What's It About?
The world premiere of the newest play by Amy Herzog (4,000 Miles, Belleville) explores possible sexual abuse of a character when he was a child. Jamie (Jeremy Strong) is leading what he thinks is a happy life with a new job as a writer at a magazine and terrific girlfriend, Paige (Sarah Goldberg) until a reunion with childhood friend, Frank, (Keith Nobbs), that looses his troubles into the world. Frank was the strange kid who always had tried to tag along with him. Jaime doesn't have a lot of memories their childhood together, but he obviously is uncomfortable in the present with Frank, who is tattooed, a homosexual and who has served time in prison. His discomfort goes to a new level when Frank explains that he is bringing charges against his father, a Sunday school teacher, who sexually abused him when he was a boy. The man also has admitted that the abuse might ave included Jaime and Frank wants him to join the lawsuit. Jamie denies that he was one of victims, but counselor Paige's description of symptoms of adults repressing abuse seems to fit him and he starts to wonder.

His mom, Cathy (Becky Ann Baker), seems unsurprised by the revelation that Frank's father may have been a pedophile and also oddly unmoved. Jaime's dad, Doug (Peter Friedman) has a different reaction, however, and tries to help his son. Jamie's old babysitter Polly (Joyce Van Patten), old and suffering from memory loss, doesn't provide too many answers, but the childhood memories Jamie does have, seem to revolve around her "scratchy" couch and trips down to the creek where she would recite the poem The Great God Pan. One trip was traumatic, but he can't remember why.

What are the Highlights:
Tautly directed, Strong gives a gripping performance of a man desperately at odds with himself -- the journalist, trying to remain detached as he collects information, and a man whose emotions have been shattered. At one point, when Paige confronts him about the future of their relationship and his inability to embrace her unexpected pregnancy, one look at Strong tells you every emotion the character is fighting and that he is losing the battle. A brilliant stage moment. The set (Mark Wendland, design) also helps tell the story -- green woods surround the action in multiple dimensions, almost like the deeply buried memory of those woods by the creek.

What are the Lowlights?
Herzog leaves a lot of questions unanswered (the play is brief -- just 85 minutes). There is a subplot involving Paige's counseling sessions with a bulimic teen, Joelle (Erin Wilhelm), that seems undeveloped and unconnected to the rest of the plot except for the fact that she's exhibiting symptoms of deeper hidden issues, too, and Paige seems as unable to help her as she is Jaime.

More information:
The Great God Pan is extended  Off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons, 416 West 42nd St., NYC, through Jan. 13. Tickets: http://www.playwrightshorizons.org/shows/plays/great-god-pan/.

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