Duet for One, Tom Kempinski’s two-character play about a therapist fighting to save the life of an anguished, suicidal patient, takes flight at the Beverly Hills Playhouse, thanks to the sensitive, skilled work of its cast and director. What could have been a static talkfest becomes an engrossing drama in their hands. The entire play takes place in the office of Dr. Feldmann (Howard Leder), a tall, lean, sharp-featured shrink with a light German accent. His patient Stephanie Abrahams (Mia Christou) is attractive, middle-aged, and British, a highly-regarded concert violinist who has been suffering for the past six years from Multiple Sclerosis. The impact of the disease on her nervous system has reached a critical point: semi-paralyzed , she no longer has the strength or dexterity to play the violin. Confined mostly to a wheelchair, she must try and cope with the knowledge that her body has betrayed her, robbed her of the most important thing in her life: music. Suffering from anxiety and depression, she has been sent to Dr. Feldmann by her family doctor in the hope that he can help her. This he tries to do in a series of sessions over the next few months. These sessions are never easy, if only because Stephanie is an unwilling and uncooperative patient. Not only does she refuse to believe that she has severe mental problems, she is one of these people who is scornful about the benefits of therapy. It’s a lot of mumbo-jumbo, a load of horseshit, she tells him at one point. The essence of the play follows from that setup: Dr. Feldmann keeps trying to get past her prejudices, her defenses, only to have her keep fending him off, fighting him in one way or another (her weapons are anger, denial, humor, even hatred). It makes for a certain sameness about the drama, a repetitiveness, but so gifted are the actors that these flaws never become major. So connected are they as a duo, so “in the moment” with each other, that you can’t help but respond to what transpires between them, especially in the climactic moments of the play when Dr. Feldmann finally breaks through Stephanie’s defenses and makes her see the truth about herself. This life and death struggle occurs on Giles Masters’ melancholic set (appropriately lit by Derrick McDaniel). Threaded through the play are wispy violin solos, touching reminders of what Stephanie sounded like when she was still healthy, still in the vigor of life and music.
