STAGE REVIEW : ‘Look Homeward, ‘Angel’ Given a Gentle Touch

Thomas Wolfe’s “Look Homeward, Angel,” like most first novels, is heavy with youthful longing and characters rendered bold through romantic hindsight. Maybe that is why Ketti Frings adapted it to the stage--all that Angst and those looming Southern folks present more than enough dramatic opportunities for any production.

What Frings had to work with in “Angel,” currently at the Newport Theatre Arts Center, is a theme familiar to young novelists and playwrights--the time when a smart but restrained kid rebels against his family, making a getaway that leads to growth and fulfillment.

Tennessee Williams did it better with “The Glass Menagerie,” but Wolfe’s autobiographical work (and Frings’ crowded adaptation, which won a Pulitzer Prize in 1957) is nonetheless able to capture the essence of that experience.

If you give it half a chance, the occasionally florid writing and cumbersome plotting can be overlooked, mainly because the vision is so pure. “Angel” has a tenderness that is undeniable.

It also has a complexity that can stump a director and his cast. This isn’t entirely a straightforward coming-of-age story about Eugene, the teen-age protagonist who exists under the weight of a domineering mother in the North Carolina backwaters. “Angel” also tells of brother Ben, the vital but doomed newspaperman, their father--a drunken, demonic stone-cutter who frightens and fascinates the family--and Laura, a passionate young woman with a secret.

In Wolfe’s novel, the story lines found the scope (and space) needed to develop separate-but-related identities. But under the limits of Frings’ two-hour dramatization, they often struggle for prominence, sometimes stumbling over each other, and it takes special direction to keep it all from getting too tangled. Director William Waxman, despite maintaining a needed tone of gentleness throughout, is not always able to keep this a seamless mesh.

Much of the problem stems from Waxman’s inability to clearly define whose story it really is. We get an evocative moment at the play’s start that has Eugene (Paul Canter) reflecting on Ben (Mark Perkins), and it appears that this solitary youngster will rightfully carry the weight of “Angel.” But the focus swiftly switches to Ben. Eugene is no more than ancillary in these early scenes.

When the father (Mitchell Nunn) makes his boozy, howling entrance, the spotlight moves again. The questions tied to his past and how he ended up with the miserly Eliza (Ruth Cameron) are prominent and become the center of our interest. The father, especially through Nunn’s raging portrayal, can easily dominate, but it is a mistake to let it happen. Even when the father holds our attention, Eugene must be in the back of our minds: we should be wondering about how he figures in all this, how he feels.

To be sure, everything comes back to Eugene in the end--his affair with Laura (Debbie Korkunis) and his decision to find his own way--but it almost seems like an afterthought, or a tidy ending for an untidy play.

The unbalanced direction is also reflected in some of the performances. Although Perkins is moodily resonant as Ben, and Canter conveys Eugene’s confused sensitivity (he should watch the anguish in the last scene, though), Cameron doesn’t reveal enough of the mother, and Korkunis’ portrayal is too studied, especially in the first act. Another problem is the Southern accents, which seem to be optional because some use them and others don’t. One actress even employs hers on a part-time basis.

As for the set, designer Gil Morales must overcome the theater’s small stage, which he does with style. The scene is a bit cramped, but Morales has nonetheless captured the textures of the South with his soft, woodsy greens and latticed, whitewashed facades touched by shadows and age.

‘LOOK HOMEWARD, ANGEL’

A Newport Theatre Arts Center production of Ketti Frings’ dramatization of Thomas Wolfe’s novel. Directed by William Waxman. With Mark Perkins, Lynne Tavernetti, Susan Steinbrinck, Paul J. Weinberg, Ruth Cameron, Mark John McSheehy, Paul Canter, Scott Passin, Providence Olson, Kymberli J. Kercher, Greg Cope, Anita Burgoyne, Debbie Korkunis, Mitchell Nunn, Bill Carden, Sean Wrather and Suzann Sitka. Sets by Gil Morales. Costumes by Mela Hoyt-Heydon. Lighting by Bruce J. Heydon. Plays Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. through April 24 at 2501 Cliff Drive, Newport Beach. Tickets: $9. (714) 631-0288.