Review: ‘Collected Stories’ at South Coast Repertory

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“Collected Stories,” Donald Margulies’ two-character play about an aging writing professor and her ambitious young protégée, is back at South Coast Repertory, where it had its world premiere in 1996. This homecoming of sorts also includes the superb Kandis Chappell, who originated the role of Ruth, a kind of crusty Grace Paley figure who serves as a mentor to Lisa, a diffident yet striving graduate student, played here by Melanie Lora with just the right questioning intonation to her anxious-not-to-offend utterances.

This may not be Margulies’ best play, but it might just be his most popular. It’s certainly a favorite among artistic directors, who appreciate the single Greenwich Village apartment set and the frugal cast of two. Actresses love it because it provides two complicated female characters, one in her 20s, the other straining even the loosest definition of middle age. And audiences, if I can generalize from my own experience, find themselves completely absorbed in the well-sketched literary milieu, the feisty conversation about the art of writing and the gradually developing relationship and rising conflict between the two women.

SCR artistic director Martin Benson’s production is a pleasure. Tom Buderwitz’s set comfortably situates us in Ruth’s home, one of those spaces neglected by superintendents but cherished by their city-dwelling tenants who inhabit them with the fullness of their creative personalities. But this is a piece that is only as good as its actors, and Chappell and Lora are very good indeed, hitting every note with as much realism as they can muster and their scenes can withstand.

Having seen the late great Uta Hagen perform the role of Ruth in New York and having admired Linda Lavin’s portrayal of the character in the PBS film of the Geffen Playhouse production, I admit I didn’t have overly high expectations for this revival. Hagen crackled in the part with a virtuoso hostility — even her robust humor set Lisa (and the audience) on edge. Lavin, who will star in the play’s Broadway premiere next year, gave an exquisitely balanced performance that broke your heart even if you weren’t sure what to ultimately make of this difficult and often exasperating woman.

But I’m glad I didn’t miss Chappell’s take on Ruth, an interpretation so real that it felt at times as if I were peeking through a neighbor’s keyhole. She doesn’t shrink the size of the character, but she removes any extraneous staginess. The comedy is underplayed — a little more levity might vary the palette, to tell the truth — but the authenticity is maximized.

Ruth is just what she’s supposed to be — a notable short story writer, singularly committed to her craft as she approaches her seniority. She’s a scribe who came of age in the New York Jewish cultural heyday of the late ‘50s, whose moment has more or less passed and whose legacy resides exclusively in her work and the influence she’s had on her students, a few of whom have become disciples if not children.

In some ways, Lisa is the tougher of the two roles — not that it’s the more important part but that more can go wrong with its handling. Yes, the character’s insecure and ingratiating manner can be disaffecting, but the bigger challenge is making this sycophantic creature believable as a budding writer.

Margulies complicates this somewhat by including samples of Lisa’s work that don’t exactly identify her as a prose stylist. Maybe that’s his point — that her rapid rise in the fame game is chancy and capricious, if not downright spurious. And in any case, Lora is completely credible as a star student who makes up in drive what she visibly lacks in self-confidence.

The point of contention between teacher and student revolves around a deeply personal story that Ruth confides to Lisa about her aborted love affair with the writer Delmore Schwartz. Chappell’s Ruth doesn’t merely describe her bygone passion, she relives it, her eyes awakening once again with the attachment to a genius who was on a long self-destructive slide to a premature grave.

These memories have been too precious for Ruth to publish, setting up an irresistible temptation for Lisa, who wants to escape the narrow confines of her own privileged WASP belly-aching. Margulies’ drama engages a myriad of smart (if too neatly packaged) questions about the ownership of the past, literary freedom and responsibility, and the personal and professional trade-offs that artists are forced to make.

Chappell allows us to see that the play is also about the terrors of growing old alone while Lora expounds on the playwright’s awareness that a meek facade can be a convenient cover for furtive aggression. Suffice it to say that anyone who’s ever dreamed of turning his or her life into a book will find this outing of “Collected Stories” enthralling.

-- Charles McNulty

‘Collected Stories,’ South Coast Repertory, 655 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays and Wednesdays, 8 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays, 2:30 and 8 p.m. Saturdays, 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. Sundays. Ends June 14. $28 to $64. (714) 708-5555. Running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes.