Bravo Lucas and Dukakis!

Craig Lucas' The Singing Forest has been lambasted by a number of critics, and for some good reasons. It is overlong, confusing and dramatically unresolved. But with all that, the critics are wrong. This is exciting, original and propulsive theatre. The program notes said that Lucas has been working on the play for nearly a decade. I hope that he won't stop now because it is a potential masterwork.

Just when you thought there was nothing new anyone could say about the Holocaust, Lucas shows us that we haven't been looking in the right places. Describing the plot - which is of breathtaking scope - would be foolhardy, and could never convey the dazzling brilliance of the writing. Suffice to say that the play starts with the interplay of a few minor characters, and eventually leads to the repressed guilt of an old woman, a retired therapist who is a Holocaust survivor, and the secrets behind the birth of her twin son and daughter, from whom she is now estranged. The son, also a therapist, is homosexual and is facing a professional crisis that could lead to the loss of his license. The daughter, a woman who is in an almost constant state of hysteria, has a teenage son who is an emotional cripple, and barely functions. For reasons of dizzying complexity, numerous characters keep stealing each other's identities until the entire cast, most of whom play dual roles, converge on the woman's home in Staten Island, and the horrible secrets of the past are finally exposed.

What keeps us holding on to this "runaway horses" plot is the speed, wit and tantalizing nuance with which Lucas reveals new facets of these characters' lives. The shifts in tone are masterfully orchestrated, but the ultimite effect is of witnessing the implosion of a huge, multi-generational structure of lies collapsing into rubble. The play ends on a note of hope, and possible forgiveness and reconciliation.

Unfortunately, that note is sour, and sounds nothing like a dramatically satisfying conclusion. While it is always wonderful to hear Mahler, playing his music at the final curtain doesn't solve the play's problems. There just may be too many characters screaming at each other in that house in Staten Island, and the subplot involving the son's devious efforts to get another therapist to sleep with one of his patients - and I'm not sure I've got that right - is too convoluted for me. Also, a few of the scenes are too long or even superfluous.

And yet, the dramatic truth of the story emerges in the play's devastating flashback scenes in the last act, in which the theme of redemption is finally stated outright. Taking us to that point would not have been possible without the amazing Olympia Dukakis, who lends a tragic dimension to the old woman. The awful weight of her guilt is always present, even when she is telling lies to a stranger on a sex hotline. The character is required to shift in an instant from feeble exhaustion to vicious sarcasm to roaring vengeance, and she is commanding at every moment. And yet, with all this Freudian melodrama - did I mention that Freud himself has a speaking role? - she still gets all of her laughs on cue.

Some of those laughs are big, too. This is a funny, funny play about ideas that are not. We are never told what we are supposed to feel, and I know that makes some audiences uncomfortable. As for me, that's what I go to the theatre for. I hope to see this imperfect play again - it is closing this week - in a new production, but with Dukakis again in the lead.

A final note: this a time when a number of people are advocating the criminal prosecution of both the defenders and practitioners of torture in the Bush administration. But I don't think anyone makes the case as strongly as this play, which never even mentions the subject. We may argue the political and legal questions, but Craig Lucas reminds us here that the need for justice is basically a human one, and that its pursuit does not stop just because the case is officially closed. Under extreme circumstances, we are all capable of shameful acts. But does exoneration by the rest of the world really stop the process? Somehow our own unresolved guilt will inevitably poison our relationships with those we love, even to the point of ruining their lives. The truth may be ugly, he says, but never forget the costs of burying it.