‘Dusk Rings A Bell’ tolls for love

Kate Walsh and Paul Sparks portray lonely people sharing a brief encounter

BY MICHAEL SOMMERS

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

OFF BROADWAY REVIEW

A successful executive in her late 30s with some midlife issues, Molly impulsively drives out to the rental cottage on the Delaware shore where her family used to summer. She hopes to locate a crucial fragment from her past — a letter she wrote as a teen to her future self and then hid in the house.

Not only does Molly find the note that winter afternoon, she also encounters Ray, a local guy she memorably smooched on the beach at twilight many years before and never saw again.

This may sound like a Lifetime Network story, but playwright Stephen Belber serves it with a troubling twist in his "Dusk Rings A Bell," which premiered Thursday at Atlantic Stage 2.

Moments after Molly and Ray kiss again — and feel a special tingle — Molly learns that Ray spent ten years in prison for a hate crime. Shocked and repulsed, Molly inexplicably finds herself driving back to Rehoboth Beach a week later to see Ray again.

Actually, Molly tries hard to explicate her ambivalent feelings about Ray. She also talks plenty regarding her past and present times. Belber shapes this 95-minute play so that its two characters speak directly to the audience as well as each other. Molly is loquacious as much as Ray tends to be laconic.

The result is a quiet little study in what-might-have-been for these individuals, who turn out to be rather nice, lonely souls troubled by their sense of disconnection from the world.

Director Sam Gold gives Atlantic Theater Company's world premiere a sensitive and very simple staging against plain wooden environs by Takeshi Kata suggesting boardwalks and beach shacks. Gold draws very good performances from his actors whose characters usually are tentative with each other but completely direct whenever they talk to the audience.

Best known for TV's "Private Practice" and "Grey's Anatomy," Kate Walsh confidently portrays the edgy Molly with a tight smile and a slightly cynical air. It's interesting to observe how Molly's breezy manner usually is betrayed by her closed-down body language implying inner conflict and uncertainty.

A visceral actor often seen exploding in Adam Rapp's dark dramas, a low-keyed Paul Sparks depicts Ray with a disarmingly gentle manner.

A chamber piece, "Dusk Rings A Bell" will surely remind viewers of those people we briefly knew long ago who might have changed our lives. If this play seems muted, the well of regret it taps runs deep.

"Dusk Rings A Bell" continues through June 26 at Atlantic Stage 2, 330 W. 16th St., New York. Call (212) 279-4200 or visit www.atlantictheater.org.