The latter is totally the case in the MCC Theater production
of his latest work, All The Ways to Say I Love You, a one-woman show in which Judith
Light plays Mrs. Johnson, a married school teacher and guidance counselor who has
an affair with one of her students. Alone in her office, designed with
depressing authenticity by Rachel Hauck, Mrs. Johnson confides her misdeeds to those
of us in the audience at the Lucille Lortel Theatre, where the show is playing
through Oct. 23.
Her story isn't particularly novel. Teacher-student scandals
have been steady fodder for tabloids, trashy novels and TV mini-series since
Mary Kay Letourneau was sentenced to seven years in prison for sleeping with a
12-year-old student. The two of them got back together after Letourneau finished
her sentence and have now been married for 12 years.
But things don't turn out as well for Mrs. Johnson and the
success of All The Ways to Say I Love You hinges on the ability of the actor
playing her to show her gradual descent from a needy woman who knew
at the time that what she was doing was wrong to one who becomes hollowed out
by the deed in its aftermath.
It's a tricky challenge: we have to like Mrs. Johnson enough
to care about her and yet resist being so seduced that we don't hold her
accountable for the choices she makes. And who better to do all of that than
the always-remarkable Light? (Click here to read an interview with the actress.)
Under Leigh Silverman's attentive direction, Light
delicately peels back the layers of love, lust, desperation and anguish until
the emotional viscera of Mrs. Johnson is fully exposed. All the Ways to Say I Love You runs just over an hour but Light
packs a lifetime of emotion into it.
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