First Nighters Revel Following SCR's Opening of The Heiress By Ann Conway
"Marvelous story!" "Great cast!" "Amazing production!" "Spot-on!"
Those were just some of the kudos whirling around Ela's Terrace as First Nighters whooped it up following the opening of The Heiress — the Ruth and Augustus Goetz classic — about a wealthy but passive young woman with an overbearing father, who, jilted by an opportunistic suitor, transforms herself into someone strong enough to exact a perfect revenge.
"The actors did a great job tonight — this was a really wonderful ensemble who gave us a seamless portrayal of a person finding a way to empower herself," SCR Co-Founder David Emmes said of the production directed by Co-Founder Martin Benson and underwritten by Barbara and Bill Roberts and American Airlines. "That's just about the most difficult thing we have to do in life."
"This was a marvelous story — well done!" exclaimed Susan Ehrlich. "An amazing production!" offered her husband, Bob. "Martin Benson did a great job — again!"
Observed long-time SCR supporter Olivia Johnson: "This play was spot-on, with the tempo just right. We couldn't have done better." What was her favorite moment in the production starring Kirsten Potter (the heiress), Michael A. Newcomer (her suitor) and Tony Amendola (her father)? "It was a series of slow moments as I watched her awakening, going from being a pained individual to someone who understood her own power," Johnson said.
The effusive throng cruised buffet tables that evoked the era in which the play was set, the mid-1800s, enjoying hearty supper fare and dainty desserts, arrayed upon tables draped with lace and topped with topiaries and romantic floral arrangements of roses, hydrangeas and cascading amaranthus.
Observing the action from the sidelines as he spoke with fellow theater-lovers, SCR Board President Wylie Aitken, happily married for 45 years to Bette Aitken, said he pitied the couple he had seen onstage. What a shame he turned out to be a mercenary, he said. "We both started out poor, so that helped us a lot," Aitken said. "Well, I did live off of Bette's salary at New York Life to get through law school!" Quipped Bette: "I admired Catherine's strength to dump him! Actually, her father reminded me of my father. Wylie barely got into my family because he was Catholic and my father wasn't!"
Playing the quiet and restrained Catherine in the nearly three-hour production was a challenge for Potter because she is a “very energetic" actress, she noted. "I don't tend to play roles that put me in the position of powerlessness. I had to take my energy, contain it in a very tight space and actually feel what that tension was like," she said. "That really affected me onstage and off."
Playing before the First Night audience had been remarkably different from performing at the preview that preceded opening night, which was filled with students, she said. "It was like the Jerry Springer show! People were interacting with us and shouting things like, 'Don't open the door, Cathy!' 'You're not going to take him back — he's a gold-digger!' I've never seen an audience that was so invasive, but in a wonderful way. They really felt a connection to the characters!"
