Keeping Track of Time

To WRITE a play around an "idea" is a dangerous endeavor. All too often the characters flatten out and the dialogue begins to resemble a philosophy text. If the play somehow falls to convey its message, nothing remains. But J.B. Priestley's Time and the Conways proves that a well-crafted, realistic drama can lose its philosophical thrall and still provide a thought-provoking and enjoyable evening out.

As the title suggests, the play does horritage to one of the playwright's fascinations--time. The theory of time presented in the play belongs to philosopher J. W. Dunne who, according to Priestly, oposits that each person is "a series of observers in a corresponding series of times." Ordinarily, people can only perceive the present, through the eyes of their mortal identity. But occasionally humans transcend this limitation. Thus when we see the future in dreams, we are looking through the eyes of an observer in some future time. Similarly, within the play, one of the characters is treated to two distinct temporal visions of her life. Act II, which takes place nearly 20 years after Acts I and III, offers protaganist Kay Conway (Margaret Whitton) a glimpse into the future of herself and her family.

The scenes that frame Act II feature Kay as a 21 year-old birthday girl, gazing out the window, excited by both her party and the recent return of her brother Robin from World War I. These scenes take on an ethereal quality as youthful Kay in her summery dress peers outside while her mother entertains the guests offstage with a song by Schimann.

UNFORTUNAIELY, the constraints of theater as a medium disrupt the continuity that would have brought out the dream nature of the second act itself Time and the Conways should have been a screenplay, because only film, with its uninterrupted flow, could cast the spell that moves Kay through time. But the breaks for set and costume changes necessary to bring the action up to--and back from 1938 ruin the transition between Kay's states of perception. As a result, Act II appears to be a mere leap in chronology rather than, as the author intended, a transformation of consciousness that alters Kay's understanding when she returns to her birthday party in the last act.

Nevertheless, Time and the Conways offers top-notch drama even if the concept of serial time gets lost in the translation from page to stage. Though the second act appears to be our own vision rather than Kay's, the play still holds together beautifully. It also surpasses most plays in its offhand observations offering true insight that one can only marvel at the fact that the current production by the Huntington Theatre Company is the first major staging of the play in 45 years.

When the play opens, the future holds nothing but promise for the upper middle class Conways. Still youthful and exuberant, the Conway children dress up in old clothes for the party's charades, joking and laughing. The war is over. Robin is safe. Any unresolved problem presents only hope Made, the socialist, wants to see the coal miners strike end in nationalization. Hazel, the beautiful daughter, looks forward to choosing a husband from among her many suitors; Kay is beginning to write a novel. The family hovers on the verge of a future of unlimited potential.

But in Act II, set on Kay's birthday in 1938, all hope is gone. By the reunion, called to settle the family financial troubles, the children have become what they dreaded. Tongues have sharpened over the years as time made cynics of the gay youngsters. Recriminations and jabs fly around the room. Each person is unhappier or less fulfilled than the next. In Act III, the scene switches back to the party in 1919. Kay sitting where we left her as Mrs. Conway finishes her song. In the rest of the evening the audience witnesses the little events that will send the Conways irrevocably toward their destinies.

AS THE time switches forward and back, the mood changes abruptly as well. But the uniformly excellent Huntington players bring off the aging and rejuvenation admirably. Margaret Whitton's older Kay retains the sensitivity that inspired the 21-year-old to write but dampens the girlish enthusiasm that made her such a pleasant soul. And Ralph Byers turns in an exceptional performance as Robin, growing from a bright-eyed young man ready to face the world to a middle-aged loser running from it--and back again.

But as vital to the mood changes as the portrayal of the characters' newly acquired nasty spirits and nasty habits (smoking, drinking, adultery) are the set and clothing switches. The furniture in Acts I and III is light and fabric-covered--vintage 1919. The costumes, too, come from a lost age of youth--especially the gaily colored blousy dresses that look as though they were lifted from an Impressionist canvas. But by 1938 the room in which the entire play takes place is furnished with heavy leather couches and chairs. The bright dresses have given way to dark, somber, serious business suits.

Priestley's play succeeds because it presents much more than a quirky theory of time. The dialogue is always vibrant, regardless of the date, and the characters are vividly drawn people with distinct, realistic personalities. All one could have asked for from the script is a longer third act: Priestley is a bit utilitarian, presenting episodes that neatly explain how the Conways' individual fortunes began their downward spiral, but are thin on the rich incidental action he writes so well.

LIKE Kay's vision, Time and the Conways sobers us even as it entertains and captures our attention. And like Kay, when we leave this party of bright young men and women with so much hope for the future, we are not caught up by its drunken dizziness and general warmth, which dissipate in a half-hour: instead, we depart saddened, but with a bit of wisdom that is more valuable and more lasting.