If you’re lucky, you have the kind of friend who makes you want to be a better person. Canadian playwright Daniel MacIvor must be one of these fortunate people, as evidenced in “A Beautiful View,” a truthful and loving account of a friendship that transcends time, trials and sexual labeling.
Mr. MacIvor is also lucky to direct two of Washington’s most accomplished actresses — Jennifer Mendenhall and Kathleen Coons - playing two women whose relationship stretches across two decades. Twentysomethings Lane (Miss Mendenhall) and Max (Miss Coons) first meet cute in an outdoor store. In between lying - they call it “wishful thinking” — to make themselves sound more interesting, the two bond over their mutual birthdays, their fear of bears and shared taste in music.
A sexual encounter follows, throwing their budding friendship into a tailspin. “I am not organized enough to be bisexual,” Max wryly comments, and each one thinks she has run into a madcap lesbian. They get past the awkwardness and even drift in and out of bed through the years. However, “A Beautiful View” isn’t about owning up to your sexual orientation, but rather the fluidity of life and how some bonds can hold up to flickers of desire.
In small, gemlike scenes staged with gleaming simplicity, Lane and Max sift through the ups and downs of their friendship as they endure jealousy, life changes (marriages, jobs, deaths of parents), and the ultimate test: forming a two-person ukulele band that performs Pat Benatar covers. If you can live through that, you can survive anything.
They speak with droll warmth and wit, talking over one another and having different interpretations of the same events the way long-standing pals do. The rhythm of their shifting conversation is at once familiar and strangely beautiful.
The most revelatory aspects of the two women are found in the silences in which they swaddle themselves. Miss Mendenhall’s Lane is craftier and protective of herself, and she basks in the silence, beatific and sly as she waits for her far more insecure and garrulous friend to burst into chatter. Miss Coons’ Max, by contrast, chafes in the silences.
Both actors are incandescent, playing off each other like a never-ending sentence — Miss Mendenhall contained and a bit of a cipher and Miss Coons’ disarmingly sputtery work-in-progress. Both trust the laconic truths found in Mr. MacIvor’s dialogue, while also trusting the stillness.
“A Beautiful View” reaches its peak when the two sit opposite one another in folding wooden chairs, their gazes unwavering. We can’t see what they see. Yet they make us believe that it is their best selves they see reflected in each other’s eyes.
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WHAT: “A Beautiful View,” written and directed by Daniel MacIvor
WHERE: Studio Theatre 2ndStage, 1501 14th St. NW
WHEN: 8:30 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays, 7:30 p.m. Sundays. Through Dec. 2.
TICKETS: $39
PHONE: 202/332-3300 WEB SITE: www.studiotheatre.org
MAXIMUM RATING: FOUR STARS
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