Donald Margulies' Collected Stories is a literate play about literate people, a professor/author and a graduate student, performed by two fine actresses: the veteran Linda Lavin who has both a sense of the dramatic and great comic timing as the strengths and weaknesses of her character gradually emerge, and the very talented, quite beautiful Sarah Paulson as an ambitious young writer whose youthful talent resonates with the mature, well-known writer/professor.
The play ultimately is an exploration of the sources of literature, and the night I saw it audience members left the theater arguing about boundaries in terms of sources. It was exhilarating to be at a play that is not only gripping entertainment, but provokes thought, ideas, and perhaps controversy.
On an ideal set for a professor's living and working quarters by Santo Loquasto, with Natasha Katz's appropriate lighting and clothing by Jane Greenwood, director Lynne Meadow's Manhattan Theater Club once again gives us an example of theater at its highest level as she guides the two stars in this terrific play.
