In Transgression at HERE Arts Center, teenaged Robin Black (Ivy Rose) scrutinizes a photograph on exhibit in a New York gallery in 1970, while photographer Norman Stone (James Jelkin) scrutinizes her reaction.
A multitude of transgressions come to light in Terry Curtis Fox’s Transgression. This melodrama about New York artists consists of 19 scenes toggling back and forth between 2010 and 1970. At irregular intervals, the playwright detonates ugly, morally irksome surprises. The result is a two-hour, slow-motion collision between louche mores in the Warhol era and the subsequent new-millennial sensitivity that augured the eruption of #MeToo.
The celebrated Norman Stone (James Jelkin), noted for photographic studies of female nudes (as well as for a voluptuous personal life), has died unexpectedly. His widow Gina (Jane Ives) comments to curator Martin Abel (Yuval Boim), who’s organizing a postmortem retrospective at a major museum: “Norman loved the naked female body. And the clothed female body. Females in general.”
In 2010, adult Robin (Susan Bennett) looks on as Martin Abel (Yuval Boim), curator of a retrospective of the late Norman Stone’s photography, reads her demands regarding Stone’s photographs of her.
As delivered by Ives, Gina’s words have a rueful, even sneering ring. She has just discovered, in Norman’s Soho studio, a carefully concealed cache of negatives, contact sheets, and prints. The subject of all the photos is a naked adolescent girl, whom Gina can’t identify. One of those images, Gina remarks, is “the most erotic … sleeping girl you’ve ever seen in your life.”
Though Gina doesn’t know when or under what circumstances the photos were taken, she surmises that the subject (seemingly asleep in all the shots) has been the object of the photographer’s intense, secret passion. In Gina’s estimation, the pictures are the pinnacle of Norman’s artistic achievement; and Martin, citing “the emotion” in them, agrees. “It’s as good as anything [Norman] ever did,” he says.
Throughout their union, Norman and Gina maintained an understanding—more “don’t ask, don’t tell” than “open marriage.” She took comfort in the conviction that, though Norman might stray, she was his unrivaled, lifelong love, not merely the lawful wedded wife. Scrutinizing the photographs, she concludes he was not only in love with the girl (perhaps obsessively so) but also aroused by her extreme youth and the forbidden nature of the relationship.
The playwright ups the dramatic ante when the girl in the photos turns up in person. Robin Black was 15 when Norman surreptitiously photographed her, on numerous occasions, as she slept on the bed in his studio. Now she’s in her mid-fifties and bitter about a hard-knock life that took a downward turn with her statutory rape by Norman. (Susan Bennett plays Robin in the 2010 scenes, Ivy Rose in the ones set in 1970.) Having learned about the photos from a news account, Robin wants all iterations of the images destroyed and a commitment from Norman’s estate that she’ll never be identified as one of his nude subjects or an underage conquest.
Fox, professor of dramatic writing at the New York University Tisch School of the Arts, is best known for work in television and film (notably, as story editor for Hill Street Blues). He had an early stage success at age 30 when Richard Schechner’s legendary environmental-theater company, The Performance Group, presented his play Cops, with Willem Dafoe and Spalding Gray in the cast, at the Performing Garage in Soho.
Gina (Jane Ives), Norman’s widow, and Martin discuss her late husband’s artistic talent and his messy personal life. Photographs by Matt Liebergall.
Fox’s writing is admirably undidactic, raising issues and sidestepping prescriptiveness at every turn. His plot (sparingly addressed above to avoid spoilers) is elaborate enough to evoke numerous social and artistic issues. Beyond the obvious questions of betrayal and predation, the script ponders what distinguishes acceptable erotic content from pornography, where artists cross the line between free expression and exploitation, and whether artistic excellence ever trumps moral concerns about creative works.
The production, directed by Avra Fox-Lerner, is ploddingly paced, with potential laugh lines squandered by miscalculated tempo. Long blackouts between the numerous scenes, which seem excessive for changes in Kate Rance’s simple scenic design, make for a fitful, draggy evening. The actors, competent overall, deliver an inordinate number of lines sotto voce, making them difficult to understand. At the preview performance under review, three or four performers appealed repeatedly for rescue to a prompter seated in the theater’s front row.
Rose, as adolescent Robin, and Jelkin, as Norman, bring nuance to a relationship that’s primarily pathetic and icky. Ives convincingly balances Gina’s disappointment and her ardor about her late husband’s achievement, making both comprehensible at once. There’s nothing pat or simplistic in these performances or in Fox’s script; and there’s every reason to hope that Transgression will continue along the Via Dolorosa of new-play development.
Transgression by Terry Curtis Fox runs through Aug. 2 in the HERE Mainstage Theater (145 Sixth Ave.). Evening performances are at 8:30 p.m. Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday; matinees are at 4 p.m. Sundays. For tickets and information, visit here.org. Tickets may also be purchased at the HERE Arts Center box office beginning 30 minutes prior to each performance.
Playwright: Terry Curtis Fox
Direction: Avra Fox-Lerner
Scenic Design: Kate Rance
Costume Design: Annie Simon
Lighting Design: Lauren Parrish
Sound Design: Ander Agudo
