Cold road to forgiveness in 'Frozen'

Diana Marbury, a founding member of the Hampton Theatre Company who has been acting, directing, schlepping props and picking plays for the past 23 years, admits to being rather partial to comedy, which explains her initial mixed feelings about her role in Briony Lavery’s “Frozen.”

The play, which opens this Thursday at the Quogue Community Hall, is no comedy, dealing as it does with the horror of pedophile serial killings, familial grief and the hard road to forgiveness for a seemingly unforgivable act.

Although she confirmed in a recent interview that she loves comedy, Ms. Marbury said of “Frozen” that it “resonates so deep … You have to be willing to go places you might not want to go, but by the time you get there, it is rewarding. It’s quite the journey.”

Ms. Lavery, a prolific and highly regarded British dramatist, has based her characters on real people but their story, though eerily close to some that have made headlines, is her own and bears all the earmarks of what one critic called her “lavish talent.” At its heart is the horrific murder of a child, an act that has entwined the lives of her murderer, played by Edward A. Brennan; her mother (Ms. Marbury); and an American criminal psychiatrist come to England to test her thesis that serial murderers are victims of their own damaged brains (Birgitta Millard).

Ms. Marbury had thought she would direct “Frozen” herself but said she stepped back when she realized that Mary-Alyce Vienneau, another HTC veteran, had fallen “head over heels for the play” and had some very clear ideas about how it should be done.

For her part, Ms. Vienneau, who is directing at HTC for the first time, confirmed that she had immediately “had this vision of how it should be staged and what a great vehicle it would be for Diana Marbury.”

“It is dark,” she conceded, “but the writing is quite brilliant and it’s not about the murder of the child.” Rather, she said, “it is about a journey for forgiveness.”

It is, of course, Nancy, Ms. Marbury’s character, who has the most difficult journey, one that begins with a string of monologues in which Nancy’s anguish and rage are revealed in a way that can be painful to share.

There are no sets per se, noted Ms. Vienneau. “It is all done with lights and sound and the acting,” she said. “The actor is completely naked up there,” she added. “Nancy has 11 monologues in the play when she is alone on the stage talking with the audience.”

Yet, the playwright has given Nancy a tension-relieving dry sense of humor and has allowed her to soften gradually and move toward a more hopeful state.

Ms. Marbury admitted that, at first, she was “a little intimidated” by the monologues, but the bigger challenge, presumably, was in convincingly conveying the changes her character undergoes between the first and the final scene.

“The tremendous emotional truths that are rampant in the piece develop in the course of the play,” she said. “There are so many changes that the character goes through.”

If Ms. Marbury felt some trepidation at the start, though, it soon evaporated.

“Basically, the fear of it went by the wayside long ago,” she said. Once she threw herself into the role, it “stimulated so many heartfelt things—some difficult, some joyful.”

Certainly Ms. Vienneau has had no second thoughts about Ms. Marbury’s ability to nail the role. “She does a terrific job as the mother,” she said. “It’s a powerhouse cast.”

Edward Brennan, an experienced actor joining the HTC for the first time, is “amazing,” she said, adding that so convincingly has he insinuated himself into the persona of the killer, Ralph, that sometimes when he is on stage she loses sight of the actor.

At such times, she said, “Ed’s nowhere to be found. Ed is gone.”

Of course, that is what acting is all about, she added, “but not many can do that. This guy is the real deal.”

Ms. Vienneau called Agnetha, the American academic whose studies focus on the criminal mind, “probably the most underwritten character in the play.” Fortunately, Birgitta Millard, the third member of her “powerhouse cast,” had access to an abundance of material relating to the real-life character on whom Agnetha is based. According to Ms. Vienneau, Dorothy Lewis was well known in her field, wrote a book and even had a movie made about her.

Ms. Vienneau suggested that one of the challenges facing Ms. Millard is her character’s strangely split personality.

“In her personal life, she is a complete basket case,” said Ms. Vienneau of Agnetha, “but when she is interviewing Ralph she is completely calm, completely at ease with a serial killer.”

These are, indeed, challenging roles for the three-person cast, but they are also “wonderful roles for actors,” said Ms. Vienneau, “roles they can sink their teeth into.”

If “Frozen” rewards its actors, both Ms. Vienneau and Ms. Marbury stressed that it holds comparable rewards for audiences as well.

There is, first of all, that “lavish talent” possessed by Ms. Lavery, whose special gift, as one critic put it, is “for multi-dimensional feeling; she knows how to light up the darkest places without trivializing or undermining her subject; she can even investigate the brain of a serial killer with something approaching humor.”

“It’s definitely going to challenge the audience as well,” said Ms. Marbury of “Frozen.” But, though admittedly dark, it is also “a hopeful play,” she stressed. “It brings you to a place of hope.”

The Hampton Theatre Company production of “Frozen” will run at the Quogue Community Hall from November 20 through December 7 with performances Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2:30 p.m. Reservations can be made at 631-653-8955 or www.hamptontheatre.org. Tickets are $22; $20 for seniors (except Saturday); $10 for students under 21. There will be no performance on Thanksgiving, November 27.