Harper Regan Disappears into a Netherworld at SF Playhouse

 

 Harper (Susi Damilano) is denied time off to see her dying father by her boss, Mr. Barnes (Richard Frederick)

 

 Daughter (Monique Hafen) and Harper (Susi Damilano) bond.

Harper (Susi Damilano) boldly converses with stranger (Daniel Redmond)
 

After learning of father's death Harper heads to bar and seeks solace from stranger, Mickey (Richard Frederick)

   Continuing her search for connection, Harper answers personal advert and meets
James (Michael Keys Hall) in a hotel.

Failing to find fulfillment with strange men, Harper reconnects with estranged mother (Joy Carlin)

  

Photos by Jessica Palopoli

Harper Regan, in the play named after her, steals a black leather motorcycle jacket and becomes a rebel without a cause. The depressed English housewife takes a sabbatical from her life and wanders aimlessly into a world so foreign to her that she finally realizes she was already in the best of all possible worlds. This two-hour production, just opened at SF Playhouse, features some outstanding Bay Area acting talent on a clever set in a well-written play by Simon Stephens.

Harper’s rootless drifting begins in a modern office setting at an employer/employee meeting with distinctly sexual overtones. Susi Damilano creates a sympathetic Harper with a complex depth of character.  She keeps a desperately professional attitude when Richard Frederick as boss Elwood Barnes puts his arm around hers, but the fear of and loathing for this sort of life read distinctly in her eyes. Elwood says, “If you go, I don’t think you should come back.” She leaves.

Harper's journey

Susi’s sense of unease and her skill at projecting it, along with her spot-on British accent, give a fine sense of yearning to be free from entrapment. She is burdened with not only a scut job but also with an unresponsive husband and a pseudo-punk teenage daughter at home. Still in her work clothes she goes to a familiar bridge to experiment with her newly found freedom. She opens a conversation with a stranger who will come to symbolize an anchor of stability in the maelstrom of her new life.

Seventeen-year-old  engineering student Tobias Rich (Daniel Redmond) says he does not like ladies in fancy dresses. When he asks why she left, she replies, “I wanted some time off [from life], that’s all.” Tobias says, “I like white women. And I like older women.” Then she flirts with and touches him. She later returns to the bridge for a reality check, but first she tests her possibilities elsewhere.
               
After confronting her daughter Sarah (Monique Hafen) in the home kitchen for a bout of mother/daughter bonding to show the gravity of what she’s leaving, she winds up flirting with a lager lout in a pub. Monique effectively presents a sassy rebellious nature covering a deep seated sense of fear and uncertainty, but Richard Frederick returning now as Mickey Nestor presents a character entirely different from Elwood Barnes, yet he still wants to paw Harper.

On the set by Artistic Director Bill English, they converse, she in a credible English middle-class accent and he in more low-class Cockneyfied style. Mickey in his black leather jacket moves closer to Harper and praises her shoulders. It’s eleven AM at the pub, and he looks rough in the jacket like that worn by the iconic rebel James Dean.

Mickey strokes her breast casually, then stops. The slightness of her discomfort surprises her.     He asks if she wants to go back to his place. Another caress and he suggests they get a hotel room. Susi at blackout radiates with surprised pride at the deed she has done, stealing the jacket. And that’s just Act I.

With a simple moving element, Act II opens in an opulently elegant but simple set, where she meets an anonymous older man. Harper says she’s never before seen a hotel room with two floors. She also says, “I’ve never answered a personal advert before.” She wears the jacket.

Michael Keys Hall as James Fortune is gently blunt as he simply states to Harper, “I’m married.” And “I want to f… you here.” In pre-coital small talk, he asks her why she left. Susi gives Harper a blend of loss and resignation when she explains she just “walked out.” Harper is awkwardly shy and tenuously aggressive when she asks to touch him. But first he must sing a song for her and dance with her. Michael’s seduction song was tuneful and his ballroom dancing was graceful.

Bay Area favorite actress and director Joy Carlin appears as Harper’s mother in a homey setting with chairs, table, mantle with clock, and paintings hanging. Joy as mom Woolley does not like the jacket Harper is wearing and wonders where she was. “You were ‘orrible to ‘im,” she chides her for her treatment of her husband Seth (also Michael Keys Hall). After that Harper goes back to the bridge.

“You’re ‘ere,”    Tobias says to her in a Caribbean Island-inflected British accent. In this place of truth she has found a reliable witness. She shows no great sense of contrition when she confesses to him she had used a ploy to start speaking the first time. “I lied to you about thinkin’ you were somebody else … I’ve been following you …” “You’re f…ing crazy,” he tells her. She takes his cap and caresses his hair.

Harper's family
  
The finale finds her back home gardening on the patio and casually telling Seth that she had sex with a stranger in a hotel room. Sarah and the home life now seem pleasant and secure.

The part of Harper Regan takes skilled creative artistry because she has no antagonist to play against. She is both protagonist and antagonist at once. She is not battling against anyone and does not hate anyone, only the drudge that she perceived herself to have become. The other members of the excellent cast are assiduously attentive supporting actors. Harper is the show in herself, and Susi Damilano is fascinating to watch as she puts Harper through her inward journey. This play is a star vehicle and it’s no jalopy. Susi steers and she drives the whole play to distinction.

Harper Regan runs through March 5 at The SF Playhouse, 533 Sutter Street (one block off Union Square), San Francisco. Tickets ($30 to $70) are available online at www.sfplayhouse.org or by phone at 415.677.9596.

For a full review please visit www.DoctorTheater.com.

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