The Seven Deadly Sins, Quintessence Theatre Group, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

For the past year restrictions on public gatherings necessitated by the Covid pandemic have precluded live performances, leaving most theaters dark. Yet, as most theater practitioners recognize, constraints—rather than depressing and inhibiting action—often conduce creativity and innovation. Philadelphia's Quintessence Theatre has risen to this challenge admirably in their digital presentation of Thornton Wilder's one-act play cycle The Seven Deadly Sins as radio plays, available for streaming in June 2021. Although audience members could listen to the seven recorded performances in any sequence, the company presented them in the order Wilder intended, made available on demand in two batches. The plays representing Gluttony, Pride, Sloth, and Envy played from 10 to 13 June; Wrath, Lust, and Avarice ran 17–20 June. With these expert performances, aided by excellent digital program notes, Quintessence has made a great contribution to Wilder's drama in presenting all seven plays in one production. When experienced as a unified whole the one-act plays reveal compelling thematic threads and connections.In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Wilder experimented with two seven-part play cycles—one based on the Christian sins and the other on Shakespeare's Ages of Man. Three of the cycle plays received their first productions in 1961 directed by José Quintero at New York's Circle in the Square: Infancy and Childhood from The Seven Ages of Man and Someone from Assisi (Lust) from The Seven Deadly Sins. In anticipation of this production Wilder gave an interview to Arthur Gelb of the New York Times, in which he expounded on his interest in the “sins” and “ages”: “I am interested in the drives that operate in society and in every man… . Pride, avarice and envy are in every home. I am not interested in the ephemeral—such subjects as the adulteries of dentists. I am interested in those things that repeat and repeat and repeat in the lives of the millions.” (Wilder's “dentist” remark may have been directed at Clifford Odets's Rocket to the Moon [produced in 1938; published in 1939].) Wilder praised Circle in the Square for its arena staging (“We have to kick the proscenium down”) and anticipated the current audio production: “The box set encourages the anecdote… . The unencumbered stage encourages the truth operative in everyone. The less seen, the more heard. The eye is the enemy of the ear in real drama” (74). In successfully recreating the intimacy of Golden Age radio drama, Quintessence's presentations allowed listeners to hear rather than see Wilder's drama.Each of the plays opened with a spoken welcome from “Thornton Wilder” (voiced with charming avuncularity by Michael Brusasco) with comments gleaned from Wilder's writing. This conceit worked splendidly in providing a brief background to each play and setting the appropriate mood—a wonderful benefit for audience members who fail to read program notes. Unfortunately, none of the productions used this conceit within the performances themselves in which a voiced narration would have been very helpful to describe stage actions and settings. Several times listeners without access to a script could have been confused, especially with Wilder's final tableaus.The first play, The Drunken Sisters, represents Gluttony and unlike other parts of the cycles, serves a previous purpose as the satyr play to Wilder's Greek tragedy The Alcestiad (1955; Collected Plays 370–430). This connection to ancient mythological drama (it features the god Apollo and the Three Fates) marks the playlet as an outlier in form among the other “sin” plays that are otherwise realistic. The Drunken Sisters is also the most farcical of the seven, and as “Wilder” declared in the spoken introduction to the Quintessence production, “it is best to begin with a comedy.” The actors portraying the Fates (Hanna Gaffney, Leigha Kato, and Marcia Saunders) enriched their portrayals with marvelous crone cackles and inebriated leerings—making the most out of their voices to evoke the play's farcical elements. But, as would occur in some of the other presentations, the actors' voices—while resonant and compelling—too often sounded too similar, confusing the listener as to which character was speaking. This production also failed to make the most of the differences among the fates (one “weaves” the thread of life, one “measures,” and one “cuts” [Collected Plays 435])—differences that Wilder emphasizes in his stage directions. Steven A. Wright as Apollo performed well in transforming from a disguised slave to a revealed god, but could have been broader and funnier in his comic song evoking the Nine Muses. The production ended with a non-textual addition. In the script Apollo speaks the final line of “Alcestis! Alcestis!” calling for the doomed queen as he “runs stumbling from the scene” (Collected Plays 443). Quintessence's production added a canny coda of the three sisters laughing and repeating the Oedipus riddle which had fascinated them. This mini-epilogue served as a nice reminder of the Fates' continuing role as deciders of destiny.The second play, Bernice, illustrates Pride and premiered in Berlin in 1957, with Ethel Waters as the title character (a housekeeper/cook) and the playwright himself as Mr. Walbeck (recently released from prison for his crime of embezzlement). “Thornton Wilder” informs the listener that the author based the play on the 1956 movie version of Ben Hecht's novella Miracle in the Rain. In the tradition of Hattie McDaniel, Zuhairah McGill performed expertly as the witty and wise black servant and also successfully brought out the character's darker aspects. But Kevin Bergen sounded too young to be the grave and stolid ex-convict. For the expository role of “Driver,” the production again failed to differentiate the characters' voices. Wilder's script describes the driver as “Irish, slightly drunk” (Collected Plays 497). If the actor had adopted a brogue—a choice clearly supported, even encouraged, by the script—the Irish accent would have not only helped differentiate the voices but added some needed levity to the otherwise somber scene. More than any of the other plays Bernice benefits from a joint production. On its own the brief play reads as thin and unsatisfying (Wilder himself withdrew it from performance). Yet when placed in context with its companion pieces, it emphasizes Wilder's recurring theme of regretful consequences, particularly among parents. In the Times interview Wilder claimed that “the reason why the world is in such a sloppy state … is that our parents were so stupid” (74).In the production of The Wreck on the Five-Twenty-Five (Sloth), the actors performed excellently in varying their voices, each one making strong tonal choices. The mother, Mrs. Hawkins (Sarah Gliko), and her daughter, Minnie (Leigha Kato), sounded completely believable as members of different generations. Kevin Bergen as the neighbor Mr. Forbes stood out as a comically superficial car salesman. The actor astutely exploited Wilder's ability to evoke a compelling character with only a few lines. The play's motif of voyeurism resonated particularly well in a “radio” presentation, as the audience overheard the characters as they watched the world pass by through windows. This production also employed many suitable sound effects, an element sometimes missing from the other presentations. Even mundane sounds of household bustling can greatly enrich the listening experience in terms of verisimilitude. The play is also the most modern of the cycle in its setting, making several references to the looming threat of atomic war.A Ringing of Doorbells, which concerns an elaborate scheme to defraud a rich woman, recalls Wilder's earlier one-act play Queens of France (1931; Collected Plays 80–92), which similarly illustrates how an imaginative scam can positively affect the “mark” or “pigeon.” The Quintessence production began well with Sabrina Profitt as Mrs. McCullum, the housekeeper, taking a cue from her character's name by speaking in a lilting Irish accent. A listening audience requires strong, even eccentric, character voices for clarity as well as variety. Charlotte Booker, as Mrs. Beattie, the wealthy widow, and Erika Rolfsrud (Mrs. Kinkaid) and Leigha Kato (Daphne), as the mother–daughter grifters, performed their parts very well, but the lack of narration greatly marred this production. The plot hinges on Mrs. Beattie's ultimate reaction to the exposed mother and daughter's attempt to swindle her. The aged widow—who has lost a daughter—envies the relationship of the two con women. Unfortunately, the author left the play unfinished. Wilder scholar and friend F. J. O'Neil provided an ending for the one-act, based on his discussions with the playwright, published in the first volume of The Collected Short Plays of Thornton Wilder. He revealed that Wilder wished to bring the play “to a logical, but unconventional conclusion” (Collected Plays 861). O'Neil ends the scene: [Mrs. Beattie and Daphne look at one another. Mrs. Kinkaid and Mrs. McCullum are frozen where they stand. Mrs. Beattie glances at Mrs. Kinkaid and then toward the antique cabinet on which stand the telephone and a writing kit with a pen holder and a checkbook. She moves carefully to the cabinet and pauses as if coming to an important decision.]MRS. BEATTIE:[Alive and together … that's the point.][Mrs. Beattie picks up the pen and checkbook, and turns back to face Daphne and Mrs. Kinkaid, as the lights fade.] (Collected Plays 532) As presented by Quintessence—without narrated stage directions—the spoken words alone of this ending left a listener confused, mystified, and unsatisfied.The first batch of four plays strongly emphasizes the “Deadly” in the cycle's title. All four feature death in some way, sometimes murder. The second group of three concerns the less dire consequences of sin in their focus on manners and reputation. Wilder ascribed the sin Wrath to In Shakespeare and the Bible. Although anger plays a major part in John Lubbock's past, it does not seem ultimately to have damaged the young attorney (voiced by Lee Cortopassi). His ambition, rather than his temper, causes the break with his fiancée Katy Buckingham (Leigha Kato). Zuhairah McGill excelled as Mrs. Mowbrey, Katy's estranged aunt and a retired madam. She captured all the nuances of charm and steely resolve in Wilder's character. As written and performed, Mrs. Mowbrey eclipses the supposed exemplum of Wrath, John Lubbock. Katy exhibits the true illustration of Wrath in her fascination with her namesake in The Taming of the Shrew. She claims not to have a temper, instead “turning all cold and stormy inside”—yet this coldness is the expression of her anger that ends the engagement (Collected Plays 543). As with his The Ringing of Doorbells, Wilder also left this play incomplete at his death. The published script, as edited by O'Neil, ends with Lubbock uncertain whether to pursue his recently exited fiancée or to stay with the retired madam who offers him social and political advancement. He finally “exits in the direction Mrs. Mowbrey has taken” (551). Sadly, listeners to the Quintessence production not privy to the stage directions are left with an uncertain, truncated ending.Along with The Drunken Sisters, Someone from Assisi (Lust) is the only other play without a modern or middle-class setting. The title refers to St. Francis (Stephen A. Wright) and his effect (both disastrous and revelatory) on women. In the introduction “Thornton Wilder” quotes from the author's journals: “The difficulty of ‘Someone from Assisi’ is to carry the burden of two tremendous elements as subordinate to elements that must overweight them … the idea of the Erotic as Destroyer and the Erotic as Creative” (Journals 272). Marcia Saunders perfectly embodied Wilder's erotic duality as the passion-plagued Mona Lucrezia. Hanna Gaffney also succeeded as the precocious child Pica, another example of this production allowing secondary characters to shine momentarily. This presentation used sounds to great effect, beginning with nuns chanting (non-scripted)—perfectly setting the scene through showing (broadcasting) rather than telling.The final play, Cement Hands, illustrates Avarice, “America's favorite sin” according to the spoken introduction. The title refers to a slang expression that describes the stingy unwillingness to extract money from one's pockets. This one-act with its sour ending could serve as a satyr play for Wilder's farce The Matchmaker (Collected Plays 285–367). Both dramas comically depict a miser, set the action in the private room of an expensive New York restaurant, and examine the relationship between money and marriage. The Quintessence production took proper advantage of the restaurant setting in its employment of suitable background sound effects. As with the previous two plays, Cement Hands dramatizes a sin that may be hurtful but not necessarily “deadly” in that it may be accommodated. At the end of Cement Hands, Diana (Leigha Kato) returns to the restaurant to leave a tip for Paul the waiter, an act that her fiancée (Lee Cortopassi), a chronic miser, cannot perform himself. Wilder's script reads: Paul, alone, picks up the tip. No expression on his face. Diana appears quickly.DIANA:I dropped a glove.(She drops a dollar bill on the table) Goodbye, Paul. (Collected Plays 583) Again, Quintessence's otherwise exceptional presentations (uniformly well-acted), by not supplying narration, leave the listener confused, diluting another Wilder ending.Although the Covid pandemic has temporarily robbed theatergoers of the thrill and immediacy inherent in live performances, recorded productions such as this one of The Seven Deadly Sins allows listeners, both present and future, nonetheless to experience Wilder's drama as it should be experienced, enlivened, and enacted by theater artists.

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