Is Occupant a new dramatic species -- interview as drama? Is it a quirky take on a ghost story? Is it a tribute to Louise Nevelson's person and artistic work? Could it be Edward Albee's way of explaining an artist's need to become an artist? Like a staged "assemblage" (the word Nevelson used to describe her breakthrough sculptures), Occupant is all these things.
Like a lecture, it has Nevelson giving the acts of her life and art mixed with her impressions of those same facts. Opinions too. Responding to The Man who questions her, she explains her immigrating from Russia as a child who always felt exotic and "destined for greatness." Not easily achieved for a free-spirited woman of her era, mismatched in marriage to upper-crust society in the form of an elder businessman, and not meant to be a mother. (She loved her son Mike but couldn't nurture.) The Man is relatively easy on her about lack of motherly devotion, but how can she keep avoiding his tracking her European studies and adventures? Her low periods and suicide attempts? Above all, what about lovers?
As what today would be termed a late bloomer, Nevelson kept trying artistic forms despite disparagement from critics and failures to sell her work. She didn't find the outlet for her most distinguished talent until her sculptural use of found objects led her to discover - -exclamation point necessary -- wood!
The Man has all the biographical facts about her that can be substantiated but pursues her creation of herself. Why the flamboyant robes, the headscarfs, the thick sable eyelashes (all illustrated by the interviewee)? Without them, of course, she'd just look like a woman on a bench answering questions from an earnest younger man on another bench.
As in the photograph of Nevelson on a wooden table back of the benches, Kate Alexander sports a gypsy-like scarfed headdress, a multi-colored and textured, tapestry-like flowing robe over black blouse and pants. Despite grand gesturing, she keeps control of Nevelson's generously beaded necklace. The Man all but withers when she sweeps near. She's surely inhabited by Nevelson's ghost, yet anything but other-worldly.
Patrick Noonan tries hard not to be unprofessional as The Man and succeeds. It's easy to sympathize when he's confused about how to expose the reality of his subject. His change from frustration to admiration is what Albee seems to be aiming for and what director Susan Greenfield understands well. She gets an engrossing performance from Alexander, with a nice hint at a gentle aspect of Nevelson.
A caution from the licensee of Occupant, that no Nevelson work may be used in promotion of Albee's work, makes the backdrop of plain vanilla wooden squares here appropriate. This production should send anyone who lacks knowledge of Nevelson's art to seek examples. Anyone, though, can appreciate learning in an entertaining way about an important artist delivered by artists of a different but also effective stripe.
