Review - Substance of Fire

When Second Stage announced they were doing Jon Robin Baitz's The Substance of Fire, I thought, ooooo, I need to see that.  I generally like Baitz's plays, I didn't see this one first time around and wanted to, and the cast looked good.  With all the other stuff playing around town, though, I sort of forgot about it.  Then I saw an article that said original star Ron Rifkin would be joining the production for a few performances due to a scheduling conflict of one of the current stars!  NOW I was all over it!  I love Ron Rifkin!  I've loved him on stage, of course (genius work in Cabaret), but hello, he was Arvin Sloane on Alias.  I'm a geeky fan girl for Alias, I admit it.  Someday I should do a post about that...  Anyway, all that blah blah blah was to say that when TDF tickets popped up for one of the performances featuring Rifkin, I was in.

Centered around a family conflict in a publishing house, The Substance of Fire is a rather over-stuffed, but still poignant, play about how the past is always present.  Ron Rifkin (carrying his script for some of the piece, but was impressively off-book for much of it, 23 years after originally playing the role) is the father, Isaac Geldhart, who specializes in publishing obscure scholarly books, mainly about the Holocaust.  He's a Holocaust survivor, and you wonder how much of his present is haunted by his survivor guilt (the rest of his family perished in the war).  He is high-minded and arrogrant, and unwilling to compromise his ideals.  As might be expected, these obscure books don't sell, so the publishing house is in financial trouble - Aaron, the oldest son and vice-president of the company, thinks they should publish a sexier-type of novel that is sure to be a best-seller.  Aaron has called his brother and sister into town to back him up, since together, they own 60% of the voting stock in the company.

 

photo credit: Carol Rosegg

How the power struggles go back and forth and destroy this family is pretty much the entire plot of the play.  The first act takes place in the publishing house, the second act takes place three years later, in Isaac's apartment.  In the second act, we meet the fourth character of the play, Marge Hackett.  Played by the great Charlayne Woodard, Marge is a social worker come to assess Isaac's mental health (there is still a power play happening off-stage with Aaron vs his father), but she too is more than she appears.  (This photo is with the original star, John Noble.)



photo credit: Peter Cunningham

All of the acting was excellent, especially Ron Rifkin, who still creates a fully-fleshed, three-dimensional, flawed, proud, haunted man even while carrying around his script.  He can barely contain his contempt for people around him, but as his layers are revealed, you don't hate him, you empathize with him and pity him for his inability to open up.  His connection in the second act with the social worker he occasionally thinks is a Sotheby's appraiser (his solitude has perhaps led to his mind getting a bit foggy) is very touching - he wouldn't connect with his children, choosing his old world ideals over their more free American standards, but he suddenly connects with this woman with losses of her own.  Her own inability to compromise matches his.  Even if I found their textual connection a bit far-fetched, I still bought their dramatic relationship.  (This photo is from the original Off-Broadway production.)

 

I also enjoyed the performances of Daniel Eric Gold, Carter Hudson and Halley Feiffer as Isaac's other children, all of whom are still children, looking for their father's approval, but are also bitter adults.  They have a nice balance of successful adults, but immature hurt kids.  If some of their motivations were a little on-the-nose, the actors at least added some shading to their portrayals.

There are maybe a few too many revelations and surprise twists along the way, but the play is still very current, even today.  It's almost as if we live in the world Isaac Geldhart is afraid of, with the loss of the importance of books and literary ideals.  And seeing how this family of a Holocaust survivor still suffers from the scars is always moving - the recent revival of Donald Margulies' The Model Apartment also showed how this particular ghost isn't going anywhere.  The final moments of this play were quite moving and very hopeful, yet not.  I'm very glad I saw The Substance of Fire and highly recommend you see it too, whether Ron Rifkin is in it or not.  It's just a good play.