Review: Piecing Together Pauline (Fringe)

by Jason Booker

Piecing together Piecing Together Pauline is one tricky task. Focusing on the life of Pauline Viardot-Garcia, the play drifts between three periods in her life, as a dying Pauline reflects upon her achievements. Who is Pauline, you may well ask. She was a friend of George Sand and a champion of Ivan Turgenev. Not a reader? Pauline also rubbed shoulders with Chopin, Berlioz, Gounod and Schumann, performing and inspiring some of their musical works. She was the daughter and sister of renowned opera singers and made a name for herself in that field as well. Unfortunate that she’s not better remembered then, you might sigh; and unfortunately this play does nothing to help her cause. A jumble of scenes involving 14 actors, half of whom have multiple roles, mixes its locations and time periods so thoroughly, in an attempt to make the play fluid and theatrical, that it mostly muddles the mind. Possibly if she were better known, the audience would have a reference point and the play would be easier to follow. The work, co-written by Roxanne Deans and Director Chris Coculuzzi, often falls prey to its exposition, having characters announce who they are, where and when they are and what has happened to demand their presence. Worse still, many of the actors deliver these speeches with a completely wooden approach to the already stifled and unnatural dialogue. The rhythms of the play are peculiar with some scenes overlapping while other transitions take longer than necessary or occur only because the Director wanted to have a musical interlude; then other moments feel clipped short and the dialogue never becomes more than a re-enactment of a history text. These figures are saddled with having to explain ideas to each other instead of investigating their emotions or coming up with a plan of action, speaking of what they will do and why – but their actions always take place offstage. A directing choice that puzzles is why the older Pauline is not onstage during the first scene, though these are her memories, however she rarely leaves downstage right, in her well-lit chair, once she enters, yet often sits through ten minute periods of utter silence. The costumes and wigs are lovely but lack personal distinction. Flat and numbing at nearly 90 minutes in length, Pauline deserves more than this show offers.

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