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The Last Silver Zephyer

nytheatre.com review by Lauren Marks
August 15, 2005

The Last Silver Zephyer is a show likely to have a life after FringeNYC. While many of the festival’s shows tend towards the ultra-ironic, The Last Silver Zephyer distinguishes itself as being entirely sincere, even in its funniest moments.The alluded to “Silver Zephyer” is a train; a train that has run through town for over 30 years, but whose service is being discontinued. The start of the play is hours before the last Silver Zephyer makes its way through town. Connie is the sole waitress in a ramshackle rail-side cafe, with an unusual ability to know who’s calling before she picks up the phone. It becomes clear as the story unfolds that her insight surpasses this parlor trick.Separately, Henry and Anne both enter Connie’s cafe, seemingly unbeknownst to each other, but each with a cocky self-assuredness of their purpose. They arrive blissfully unaware of the ineffable presence lingering in the strange package of a coarse and crumpled, aged country waitress. A raging storm soon blows in, trapping the three of them together in somewhat mortal peril.The situation is classic: three people are assembled in a room that they cannot leave, and, over the course of the time together, their secrets are revealed. The script provides an excellent structure for the dramatic tension build, which it does quite naturally. And, the cafe Connie has haunted for 30 years, soon to be destroyed along with the Zephyer, is an essential setting for action of this text. The cafe is not entirely part of this world, but not entirely elsewhere either; it seems as if anything is possible here.Henry and Anne soon discover something unsettling about Connie and the way she seems to casually discover their innermost secrets. Each of the two protests that they are beyond her, or anyone’s, reach. Connie admits to seeing them only as “logs on a chopping block,” ready to splinter and crack. In fact, Connie adds, “You’re so ready I’ll hardly feel like I did anything.” Indeed, by the time Connie’s axe has swung, one might be inclined to believe even perhaps her most fantastic claim—“I’m not God. But I represent him.” The fates of all three characters become intertwined, and, in the end, destiny is the clear victor in a battle with cynicism.Partially because this play is so ready for the next level of production, it is not difficult to notice that there is a bit of inconsistency in the play. The script is exceptional in some places, especially in its indications of Connie’s prescience, but in other sections it seems a bit inchoate. The dialogue between Henry and Anne is less strong, and their moments of self-explanatory monologue are the least effective moments in the script.Without a doubt, the best reason to see this show is to see Joan Darling. It would be hard to overstate how compellingly quirky and magnetic she is as Connie. A veteran actor, Darling has appeared opposite the likes of George Segal and Gene Hackman. And, impressive though her resume is, she is even better in person. Both her co-stars, Mike Wiley and Melissa Macleod Herion, hold their own opposite her, but neither inhabits their role as completely as she.Those looking for a funny, less tongue-in-cheek selection from this year’s Fringe offerings would be well advised to see this play in its limited run. Blake Bradford directs this new work by Bill Svanoe in its NY premiere.