The production marks the end of the company's residency at 14th and T, NW.
Celia Wren reviewed 'Opus' in April, 2007:
For a play about human dissonance, Michael Hollinger's "Opus" is remarkably harmonious.
As tidily packaged entertainment, "Opus," now running molto cantabile in a Washington Stage Guild production, lilts through 90 minutes of droll one-liners and gossipy plot twists, tempered with some not overly taxing reflections on the paradoxes of artistic creation.
Plus, this portrait of a classical music ensemble in crisis -- cannily pitched at theatergoers who like their diversions in an intellectual key -- allows audiences to pat themselves on the back for not being philistines.
First produced last year, "Opus" chronicles the plight of the fictional Grammy-winning Lazara String Quartet after it's lost one member. When an anxious young violist named Grace (Kathleen Coons) fills the vacancy, just before a televised performance at the White House, she learns just how discordant a clutch of performing artists can be.
As the bickering builds toward a surprise reversal, the play ponders a few evergreen aesthetic questions: Can expressiveness outweigh technical prowess? How true must one be to a composer's intent? And in an art form such as chamber music -- or theater, by implication -- what remains after the moment of performance has fleeted by?
The five-member cast, directed by Steven Carpenter, folds those highfalutin themes smoothly into the quip-heavy dialogue while lending a good deal of personality to Hollinger's carefully staked-out characters.
Pivotal to the production's bantering tone is Kryztov Lindquist as Elliot, the quartet's resident intellectual. Elliot happens to be a master of the riposte: "He doesn't make music, he extrudes notes," he sniffs of a violist who botched an audition for the ensemble. "It's like trying to make love with a kitchen appliance." Whetting the edge of such cynical zingers, Lindquist's scowl and effortlessly withering tones place the Lazara dysfunction clearly on display.
Carl Randolph brings confident bonhomie to the character of Alan, a divorce whose romantic interest in Grace risks sabotaging the quartet's viability.
As for Ritchie Porter: If he initially seems to be underplaying his portrait of the cellist, Carl, it later becomes clear that he's hinting at Carl's defining trait (each of the play's characters has an obvious one).
Coons's apprehensive pallor and air of vulnerability help stoke the narrative momentum: Grace, an alumna of the Weehawken Youth Symphony, might be able to sight-read Bartok, but it's not clear that she can wade through the quicksand of chamber music professionalism. Further ratcheting up the suspense is the slightly crazed look in the eyes of R. Scott Williams, who depicts the quartet's previous violist, Dorian.
Contrasting and echoing the tensions among the characters are sound cues, which are designed by Carpenter and which include Beethoven excerpts (the quartet provocatively opts to play the challenging Op. 131 for the White House gig) and the strains of Pachelbel's famous Canon (which Elliot caustically compares to the score for a tampon commercial).
Nor are the musical references restricted to the sound design: At the back of Marcus Darnley's set -- furnished with movable articles such as music stands and chairs -- stand five tall flats, papered with music manuscript and resembling five white keys on a giant keyboard. Sure, "Opus" is about string players, not pianists, but who's quibbling?
A classically trained violist himself, Hollinger -- whose "Incorruptible" and "An Empty Plate in the Cafe du Grand Boeuf" have also been staged by WSG -- might be more of a wit than a philosopher. Still, in "Opus" he has no trouble arguing one central thesis: that a successful work of art is greater than the sum of its parts.
