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Do Let Us Go Away. A Play

by Gertrude Stein

Three Sisters Who Are Not Sisters

an opera, text by Gertrude Stein, music by Ned Rorem
review by Kerry Reid in Metropolitan May 18, 1998
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EXIT Theatre continues the 1998 Absurdist Season with two pieces by the mistress of 20th-century avant-garde literature, Gertrude Stein. In 1916's Do Let Us Go Away. A Play, directed and designed by John Sowle, a shifting group of Gertie clones plays out domestic squabbles and romantic intriques on Mallorca, where the "real" Gertie and Alice have come for an extended holiday. Janet Ward deserves kudos as the narrator for keeping the admittedly confusing action on course, and June Stoddard (who bears a stunning resemblance to Stein) and Kathryn Trask play Gertie and Alice with a blend of gentle befuddlement (at times shared by this audience member) and irritation. Is it about colonialism and class relationships? Or are the conflicts onstage a microcosm of the Great War, raging at the time? Who knows? It's Stein, and you'll either love it or not (or maybe you'll love part of it and be frustrated by the rest). In any case, it's a smartly paced and skillfully interpreted take on a difficult piece. Three Sisters Who Are Not Sisters, a Ned Rorem mini-opera based on Stein's 1943 play, is much more accessible. Directed by Steven Patterson (who also designed the deliberately tatty music-hall set and lighting), this piece plays like a conventional 19th-century murder melodrama, with Stein's famous repetitions and syntactical eccentricities woven into its fabric. All five of the singers do a wonderful job interpreting the gloriously silly lyrics (and aping the mannertisms and facial expressions of high melodrama, to great comic effect), while musical director Dwight Okamura keeps the ivories jumping. If you've never seen Stein onstage, EXIT provides a perfect forum with both these pieces.

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