Becoming Ingrid

BY THE BOOKS Harkins, left, runs out of shelf space.

Photo: Rory Tanksley

In New York author Lentini’s new play, American newlywed Christine (Harkins) moves to Scotland when her dutiful but small-minded husband gets a job there. As luck would have it, her idol—best-selling novelist Ingrid (Taylor)—is teaching a writing class at the local university. Through Christine’s awkward but earnest efforts, the two women develop an unlikely relationship.

Director Stires finds some lovely moments here, as when Christine cuts her hair near the end of Act I: In low light, Harkins fishes bobby-pinned extensions out of her hair and lets them fall. There are also some unexpected complications, such as Ingrid’s awful but pitiable boyfriend (Billy Fenderson) or the rift that Christine’s revulsion to physical intimacy creates in her marriage. Unfortunately, these ideas don’t get any traction. The haircut, presumably to make Christine look more like Ingrid, is never referenced, and her sexual antipathy is never explained and never develops into anything. Stires’s direction, generally sluggish and precious, fails to bring out the best in an uneven ensemble; while Heidi Katz is wickedly composed as the bitchy snob Sasha, she’s incomprehensible as the Scottish landlady.

Moreover, Lentini’s cloying deification of writers is just too much. The eleventh-hour no-stakes drama of “real writers” versus mere writing teachers makes an unintentionally powerful case for good teaching.

• More theater reviews
• More Theater articles