The program of Mauritius, the Theresa Rebeck Broadway play getting its southeastern debut at New Theater in Coral Gables, promises "a sinister comedy about stamps." In the spirit of that alliteration, let it be known that the play has a serious side involving half-sisters (same mom. different fathers) and that the staging reflects the tale's split personality.
The play gets its name from the island that, as British colony, produced red and blue stamps that now are extravagantly pricey because of an engraver's mistake. A pair of such stamps, assuming they're real, are part of a collection that will be an inheritance -- but whose? Does the collection belong to the younger sister, Jackie, who took care of their recently deceased mother (who left no will) in a tiny Manhattan apartment, or the older sister, Mary, who has lived a comfortable life since moving away after her father (whose own father owned the stamps) died when she was a teenager?
And there's the matter of valuation and sale. Three local philatelists want to get their hands on the stamps, perhaps working in concert, perhaps as competitors.
This certainly brings to mind American Buffalo, and there are times as well when
the stamp-shop denizens and their moneyman sound as though they've taken elocution lessons from Nathan Detroit. It's the male characters who provide the comedy.
Actor/playwright Michael McKeever plays Philip, the shop-owner who -- somewhat weirdly -- refuses even to look at the stamps when Jackie seeks his opinion, and Israel Garcia plays Dennis, who hangs around and is willing to take a look at the collection, then turns eager to get involved in a sale. The drab, bare-bones shop shares the scruffiness of its denizens. Bill Schwartz plays Sterling, a careful dresser with a soft spot for stamps and a reputation for putting up hard cash for all sorts of things. Lots of body language and gesturing animate their scenes.
Back at the apartment, Michaela Cronan does a good job at presenting a Jackie who's overwhelmed by the tasks still to be done now that her mother's dead, and Kim Ehly gets the thankless role of the long-gone Mary, who's returned now with little else on her mind than to retrieve her grandfather's stamps.
Rebeck's script has the audience guessing about more than who will get what. What's behind Phil's big grudge, the hints that Jackie's no stranger to violence and her complaint that she's never been to the beach (the subway will get her to Coney Island)?
And why does Jackie show up at Phil's without a purse and carrying a stamp album -- with its possibly very valuable contents -- under her arm? One way of looking at it: Rebeck won an Edgar award from the Mystery Writers of America (for a 1996 episode of "NYPD Blue") so maybe we should take this discordant moment on stage as a tip of the hat to namesake Poe and his hidden-in-plain-sight "The Purloined Letter."
