STAGE REVIEW
TAG's 'Anna' lacks clarity, dramatic impact

By Joseph T. Rozmiarek
Advertiser Drama Critic

•	'Anna' 7:30 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays, 4 p.m. Sundays through Aug. 18 The Yellow Brick Studio $10 Reservations: 591-7999

In "Anna," based on a real person and an actual event, the playwright can't presume that the audience is informed. Basic questions must be answered early. Who are these people? What's going on here? Why should we care?

By this token, "Man of La Mancha" succeeds even for people who never heard of "Don Quixote." "Les Miserables" is a tougher sell, but the music and the staging tide us over until we figure out who's who and what's what.

If the play doesn't quickly grab attention or develop essential information, the kindest alternative is to provide basic program notes. This doesn't happen at "Anna," where the first act is spent on fumbling exposition. That can make an audience restive, puzzled and mildly annoyed. The drama begins too late in the second act, then sputters out.

The real-life Anna Akhmatova (a pseudonym for Anna Andreyevna Gorenko, 1888-1966) is considered one of the greatest Russian poets. She wrote with simplicity and clarity, in words imbued with the dark and suffering Russian character. The personal and religious tone of her work caused her to fall into disfavor in with the Soviet regime.

Moss opens her play in Anna's Leningrad apartment where she is under informal house arrest after World War II — watched, shunned and understandably paranoid. She has agreed to risk a visit from a British professor, Isaiah Berlin, who has asked to meet her.

During Act One, we learn something about these people. Anna speaks directly to the audience and reads from her poetry. These two strangers get to know each other. She was an early rebel, lived in Paris, posed nude for the painter Modigliani and spoke out freely. But even her marriage and love affairs were colored by bleak Russian overtones. From a love poem:

"In human closeness there is a secret edge,
"Nor love nor passion can pass it above,
"Let lips with lips be joined in silent rage,
"And hearts be burst asunder with the love."

Berlin was born Russian, raised in England, and was then working as a Russian translator for the British government. Having visited America, he was viewed as a possible spy. He is delighted to visit a writer he admires and to once again hear Russian spoken. He also admits to having trouble with women.

Anna is 55. Berlin is 36 and a virgin. The play asks us to accept that in this single meeting, the two fall in love — platonically — and that it will change their lives. This is a tough sell.

The best dramatic action happens in Act Two, when Anna serves a simple dinner of boiled potatoes. In a prolonged scene over cutlery and toasts with water in silver champagne goblets, the characters telegraph their personal attraction. (Think of the ribald food scene in the movie "Tom Jones.")

Later, when Anna reveals that there may be a microphone hidden in her chandelier, both demonstrate their bravery by reading her poetry into the light bulbs. Despite Berlin's desire, he cannot fully reassume the Russian ethos for suffering. Anna writes:

"Why is this century worse than those others?
"Maybe, because, in sadness and alarm,
"It only touched the blackest of the ulcers,
"But couldn't heal it in its span of time."

During the evening, Anna reconnects with the freedom she has hidden away, and Berlin discovers his for the first time.

With the dawn, they part to live out the consequences of those discoveries.

Peter Webb does an acceptable reading as Berlin, but Frankie Enos' work as Anna is marred by a falling-away speech pattern that renders the second half of most of her sentences unintelligible.

"Anna" is a mildly interesting new work, but it is largely an inward journey for two characters that sorely needs stronger dramatic action.

Joseph T. Rozmiarek is The Advertiser's drama critic.