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No shelter from the predictable
By JOHN FLEMING, Times Performing Arts Critic ST. PETERSBURG -- The Pavilion is like a letter to Dear Abby, one that might be signed "Pining in Pine City." Regret, nostalgia, sentimentality and loss are the ruling elements in Craig Wright's play about a 20-year high school reunion, which opens American Stage's 24th season. The place is a lakeside pavilion in the fictional town of Pine City, Minn. (not to be confused with the real Pine City in northern Minnesota), and the main characters are Peter and Kari, the cutest couple of the class of '82, who haven't seen each other since graduation. Peter (Christopher Swan) is a therapist in Minneapolis-St. Paul, and Kari (Robin O'Dell) works in a bank in Pine City. Peter has had a string of rotten relationships. Kari is unhappily married to a golf pro named Hans, who came to her rescue after Peter abruptly left for college without saying goodbye. So the question is: Will Peter and Kari get back together? And if not, will Kari at least accept Peter's hangdog amends for being such a cad 20 years ago? The Pavilion is designed to be an audience pleaser, because it harkens back to everyone's hallowed high school days, but it never gets past the inherent predictability of it all. Wright tries to give the story larger meaning through his philosopher mouthpiece, the Narrator, who is prone to lengthy soliloquies on memory and time. John Kevin Jones plays the Narrator, as well as impersonates more than a dozen of Kari and Peter's old classmates, men and women, in a bravura, scenery-chewing role. But his characters never rise above caricature, from the spacey pot-smoking mayor to a woman named Carla, whose boozy drawl suggests one of Tennessee Williams' sadder but wiser Southern belles transplanted to Lake Wobegone. Jones is an appealing performer, but his occasional bobbles with lines Friday indicated the demands of the part. There were many times when you wanted the Narrator to just shut up and let Peter and Kari try to work things out. O'Dell is the radiant center of the production, probably much too smart and attractive to land in Kari's emotional fix, and her reverie on the time she and Peter first made love was remarkably fresh and passionate. Swan, with his thinning hair and dorky sport coat and jeans, does well in an unflattering, wishy-washy part, and he has a good song as the only surviving member of the Mustangs, Down in the Ruined World. The play is deftly staged by Wendy Leigh, who takes the pavilion setting and runs with it, turning American Stage's sometimes awkward space into a theater in the round, with seating on two sides that are normally unused or taken up by scenery. The actors range up and down the aisles to good effect. Scott Cooper's simple set consists of a platform and a couple of benches, and Joseph Oshry's starry lighting is nicely atmospheric. Of course, Kari and Peter end up together in the reunion's midnight "sweetheart dance" under the glitter ball, but it would be a terrible mistake for her to get back with him. Perhaps she should dump Hans, but instead of trying to start over again with her unreliable high school flame, she ought to follow the lead of millions of small-town Midwesterners before her and move to Florida and reinvent herself. Theater reviewThe Pavilion by Craig Wright runs through Oct. 13 at American Stage, 211 Third Street S, St. Petersburg. Tickets: $20-$28. (727) 823-7529.
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