An affair that marks the passage of time
Playwright John Shevin Foster greeted the Ensemble Theatre audience Thursday night at his play, “Plenty of Time,” a two-person show covering a love affair over four decades.
The play, which runs through June 5, starts in 1968 with college student Christina and bus boy Corey waking up in bed, their first encounter that will lead to an unusual, lifelong connection.
Foster explained that on a trip to Europe with his mother when he was young, he saw the Bernard Slade play “Same Time Next Year,” a drama that focuses on a couple who meets only once each year. The playwright said he wanted to do a similar play focusing on an African-American couple.
A bedroom in a vacation home in Oak Bluffs, “the Black part of Martha’s Vineyard,” is where Christina and Corey begin their relationship. At first it is primarily sexual, with Christina reminding Corey that he is merely a bus boy. The issue of class difference punctuates their relationship to the end of the play — still touching a nerve with Corey after all that time.
The passage of time is marked by changes in the bedroom décor and costumes that reflect the phases of the characters’ lives.
Between scenes, a large video screen shows headlines and magazine covers, often from Ebony and Jet, reminding the audience of key political events and popular musicians and celebrities of the times. Although there’s enjoyment indulging in the nostalgia creative and important figures from each era, it’s a bit awkward to move from stage to screen so many times between scenes, even if the technique does emphasize the cultural changes that affected the characters and their lives.
As director Eileen J. Morris explained, Christina and Corey, eventually, “are also married to other people and agree to meet once a year
and through their relationship, we experience a changing world, with a landscape that includes politics, race, illness and other relevant issues.”
Morris says that although we often claim we have “plenty of time,” the truth is that “time passes rapidly,” and when the play ends, it’s easy to wonder what the romance between Corey and Christina would have been if they had chosen more time for each other.
Rachel Hemphill Dickson, who also teaches theater at University of Houston-Downton, is charming as Christina, and I marveled at how she could play youth and aging so gracefully and convincingly through the decades. Part of it comes from Dickson being so accomplished with physical movement, conveying Christina’s moods through body language. This play is demanding of both actors, and her energy never flagged.
Although Christina is not neces- sarily the most likable character at times, Dickson does a remarkable job of making clear why she does what she does.
Steven J. Scott plays Corey, who begins as a rather angry young man, thinking he might be a Black Panther, but over the decades has a variety of pursuits, from serving his country in Vietnam to becoming an attorney. He, too, is a great physical actor, and he handled more serious moments with finesse, including a poignant scene in which he tells Christina about the death of one of his sons.
An interesting combination of drama with comedic touches, “Plenty of Time” begins with a relationship primarily fueled by physical attraction that transforms into something deeper, even if it never falls into the traditional form of marriage.
The play is unafraid to reveal the characters’ failures even as we are hoping that they continue their relationship, and the emphasis on the passage of time is a wistful reminder that we never have as much as we claim.