Never before in viewing FSU/Asolo Conservatory’s performances have I seen so many talented people working hard to deliver a drama as inconsequential as Amy Herzog’s Belleville. It premiered in 2013 in what the program describes as a specific time of “new naturalism” that apparently is supposed to have various tragic and thrilling powers. Tragic, maybe. Thrilling, uh-uh.
In the real Paris neighborhood in which Herzog’s play is set, street art has flourished and immigrants have recently found it less difficult to settle in than in most other areas of the city. This is exemplified by the Senegalese landlords of the main characters, Americans Abby and Zack. The younger couple don’t actually seem to have anything to do with art or Paris or anything but Abby’s relationship with family back home and, as the drama’s major concern, both her and Zack’s marital status.
Of course, each of the main couple’s emotional, physical, mental, and economic conditions come into play during their interactions and their actions when they are alone or behind closed doors. Zoya Martin’s Abby and Peter Raimondo’s Zack have their best moments early as they lead into love-making. Peter shows Zack’s anxiety best when he sneaks drug-taking. Zoya makes Abby’s handling of a knife worthy of audience concern.
Jerald Wheat stands out as Alioune, both in his friendly-at-first dealings with Zack and later as he works with his spouse Amina being strict with the Americans. It may be a bit hard to understand all of Dreaa Kay Baudy’s French as Amina, but not her insistence on necessary treatment of the American couple. Overall, the immigrant husband and wife contrast enough, if not absolutely perfectly, with the other two marrieds.
It is supposed to be thrilling to watch the decay of Abby and Zack’s self-images and marriage, but I found it predictable from the start and eventually boring. How long can one really maintain interest in the personal relationship of two shallow characters?
I must admit I never had the feeling of the action being in Paris, even granted that the Belleville district is different from the surrounding ones mainly for its height and gardens that get no mention in this play. I wondered at the relative lavishness of the apartment, as if it were much painted yet in a relatively new or restored building—and its balcony just over the outside street (which seemed to be unrealistically well lit and wide!). Very little noise from that street and no typical foyer into so large an apartment. No separation of toilet and bath.
What success this performance achieves is definitely due to the performances and direction of the actors, especially in very demanding intimacy scenes. The play proves a good vehicle for advanced students of acting. The ones in Belleville deserve the rating stars that the play does not.
