In Studio Theatre's 'Mecca,' Three Is a Magic Number

Martin Rayner Finds Chemistry With D.C. Stalwarts Hicken, Twyford

It will doubtless become part of Studio Theatre lore that on the opening night of "The Road to Mecca," two of the three actors had retired to dressing rooms after the curtain call and had to be retrieved to take another bow.

"The audience would not stop," says Artistic Director Joy Zinoman, who staged the production of Athol Fugard's 1984 play, which runs through Oct. 12. Holly Twyford, Martin Rayner and Tana Hicken "are on fire every night. The chemistry between those people is just beyond, it really is. And they couldn't be more different as actors, so it was quite an extraordinary experience," Zinoman says.

"It was a sense of joy, no pun intended, of working together on this production," observes Hicken. And Twyford agrees that "there's something that's so special about such an intimate cast."

Fugard's text-heavy drama, which Twyford calls "an emotional marathon," is based on the life of South African visionary artist Helen Martins (played by Hicken). Martins transformed her bungalow and yard -- now a museum -- in a remote desert town into a mystical wonderland of sculptures and colored glass, which she called her Mecca. Shunned by neighbors, she was befriended by a young schoolteacher. The play, set in 1974, explores that relationship.

"Helen is really the incredible person who . . . dares to be different," says Twyford, who plays the teacher, Elsa. She helps Helen stand up to the Afrikaner minister (played by Rayner) who wants to move her into an old people's home, away from her art. Elsa comes to buck up her friend but finds inspiration instead, Twyford says: "She's the woman with guts, the sort of true feminist, if you will. She's willing to say, listen, this is what I need to do for my soul."

Hicken's father was an artist, so she says she understands Helen quite well. "I grew up on the notion that . . . you found what you loved and you dedicated yourself to it. So I've sort of been familiar with that kind of passion," the actress says.

For nearly the entire first act, Helen and Elsa argue and weep and comfort each other. Then the minister arrives. "We're always so glad to see him. Somebody else can talk," Hicken jokes.

"Joy always said it's terribly difficult coming on halfway through a play," remarks Rayner, whom Washington audiences have seen as Scrooge/Dickens in "A Christmas Carol: A Ghost Story of Christmas" at Ford's Theatre. "You've got to be as relaxed as the people who've already been there for an hour . . . so my goal with the first audience was to seem very, very relaxed, when I wasn't at all."

This is the first non-Dickensian show the British-born Rayner has done in Washington. So he wasn't familiar with Hicken, who recently played the acerbic Mrs. Lintott in "The History Boys" at Studio, or with Twyford, who appeared in "The Internationalist" there. Little did he know that both actresses are area theater phenoms.

"As soon as I realized that they really knew what they were about, their empathy and the way they relate," he recounts, all was well. "There's a really nice sense of sharing and generosity that comes with those two."

A Tiny Bite of the Big Apple

It may seem like taking coals to Newcastle, but to the artistic directors and the cast of Annapolis's tiny, professional Bay Theatre Company, it was a very big deal to remount their production of Edward Albee's "The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?" in New York City.

The one-night-only performance at the Players Theatre in SoHo on Monday was done with the express permission of Albee, who cleared the way for Lucinda Merry-Browne and Janet Luby, Bay Theatre's co-artistic directors, to obtain the rights to do the show there. He also encouraged their Annapolis production last spring, suggesting in a letter that they gear their advertising to "the young and adventuresome" and not the "more reactionary members of your community." (The play is about a man who confesses to his family that he is in love with a goat.)