Poetry in motion at Yale Rep: Dear Elizabeth

Written by Joanne Greco Rochman
Thursday, 20 December 2012 12:17

Mary Beth Fisher and Jefferson Mays as Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell in the play, Dear Elizabeth, at Yale Rep.

Sarah Ruhl’s “Dear Elizabeth” at Yale Rep is a wide-brushed landscape of two poets’ lives. Painted verbally with just enough detail to define poets Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell, but broad enough to reach the poet laureates across continents, this work renders a thought-provoking modernist look at their relationship. It also poses lingering question: “Are words ever enough?”  

Two gifted poets met in 1947 at a mutual friend’s apartment. Lowell was already the darling of the literati and won a Pulitzer that year, while Bishop’s work was gaining more and more attention. They began corresponding, establishing a type of writer’s workshop via their letters. Quickly forging a friendship based on respect for each other’s works, the two became confidants and saw each other through difficult times in their  writings and in their personal lives. Though they felt a deep love for each other, they led separate lives. Their letters were not of the love-letter ilk. It’s as if the two wordsmiths were tongue-tied when it came to pronouncing their love for each other. Instead of lovers in a physical sense, they connected with words that ever flowed freely and beautifully over a 30-year period. One can only imagine what their lives and works would have been like if they had joined together.

What is so special about the Yale Rep production is that director Les Waters punctuates tender, comic, and witty moments at exactly the right time. With Adam Rigg’s clever set, just when one of the characters can’t find a hat, a door opens and a stage hand presents the hat. At other key moments, a window opens, a flood of water washes over the stage, and, at times distracting and somewhat gimmicky, it offsets what would otherwise be a staged reading. For all its positives, the play is disappointing only because of the letter-reading format of two actors. A.R. Gurney mastered this concept  and it is impossible not to think of Gurney as one watches “Dear Elizabeth” unfold. No matter what Ruhl and Waters do to suggest more than two actors reading letters to each other, ultimately that is just what it is. Happily, the letters laced with longing and lost love are grand. 

Mary Beth Fisher plays Elizabeth Bishop with a colorful capacity for candor and compassion, whether she’s climbing on a chair or mulling over a letter.   Jefferson Mays plays Robert Lowell imaginatively and playfully. Together Fisher and Mays provide their own kind of poetry in motion and by doing so allow audiences a sneak peek into the creative minds of Bishop, Lowell and Ruhl. The production plays through Dec. 22. Box office: 203-432-1234

Joanne Greco Rochman is an active member in The American Theatre Critics Association, and covers art and culture in a blog for CBS and CBS-CT.  She welcomes comments. Contact: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it