Marshall Mystery Moves Between Two Worlds. (Reviews: National).

SUSAN MARSHALL & COMPANY BYHAM THEATER PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA OCTOBER 19-20, 2001

In a nutshell, Susan Marshall's eighty-minute diversion One and Only You is text-driven theater that uses movement to underscore, fill in, and punctuate. The narrative, relayed via spoken dialogue and voiceover, concerns Jack/Hudson, a novelist with career-generated marital problems and a fantasy-propelled creative process that shapes his latest potboiler--a moody detective yarn. The piece was co-commissioned by the Pittsburgh Dance Council, Symphony Space NYC, and Randolph Macon Women's College.

Throughout the play, Jack (Mark DeChiazza), clad in a sleeveless white undershirt and gray trousers, smoothly transforms into Hudson, the detective, by donning a hat and adopting a slouched posture, while his wife, Sara (Kristen Hollinsworth), discards black-rimmed glasses and a shawl, morphing into the sleek, vivacious Stella Van Pratt. Advance materials suggest that the remaining characters, Lucky and the Van Pratt cousins Anna and Bella, are additional alter egos of Jack's and Sara's, respectively; however, onstage those relationships are less explicit.

Marshall employs clever theatrical devices, especially in the work's final moments. Here, the novel's ending--a shootout resulting in different configurations of dead characters--rewinds twice (complete with sound effects and performers running in reverse) before reaching a satisfactory conclusion--reconciliation between the estranged couple.

The six-member cast manipulates the kitchen table and chairs, facilitating the transition between the external and imaginative worlds. In one scene, the retreating Anna walks backward across the aligned furniture, quickly positioned by Hudson until the supply expires and she falls into his arms.

Marshall also creates humorous touches and character-defining signature phrases with repetitive movements. For example, an undulating strut for Bella exaggerates the character's sultry sexuality. Elsewhere, a partnering maneuver repeatedly overturns a chair, dumping Hudson on the floor. Whenever Anna's name is spoken, she responds via an affected head toss followed by an extended arm with wrist bent, which becomes anticipated and amusing.

Act One concludes with a deliberately pretentious interview between the Critic (Isaiah Sheffer) and Jack that takes an irreverent (and inane) turn as the author flicks crumpled manuscript pages into his interviewer's face. In a second encounter, the Critic introduces the successful writer and invites Sara (seen stage fight packing a suitcase) to join her husband onstage. Her absence--predictable and poignant--provides Jack's wake-up call.

Christopher Renino's text accurately depicts the writing process by repeating words and phrases until they form coherent sentences (a procedure visually paralleled with choreography). Jack "interviews" the silent, enigmatic Lucky, translating his underdeveloped character's gestures and expressions into motives. In another scene, Jack physically manipulates a pairing between Lucky and Bella, plus accessorizes and dresses her in outerwear to match his modified scenario.

While One and Only You reveals similarities between the choreographic and writing processes, the collaborators forgot one important element--editing, as the work's premise wears thin before Sara and Jack finally clasp hands across their kitchen table.