THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, June 5, 1996 TAG: 9606050031
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E3 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Theater Review
SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, THEATER CRITIC
LENGTH: 60 lines
DEPENDING ON your viewpoint, the life of Edgar Cayce is either one of the great mysteries of this century or a source of great solace.
In either case, the possibilities for drama are plentiful.
Even the title of ``The Freak'' is ambiguous. Produced 15 years ago off-Broadway, it received a highly successful local run in 1992. Now, it has returned.
The play draws its power from the reluctance of the young Cayce to accept the ``powers'' that he neither sought nor celebrated. It is set in Hopkinsville, Ky., some 20 years before Cayce and his family moved to Virginia Beach and made their home within yards of the very site where the play is now performed.
A thirtysomething Cayce is depicted as an uneducated man who was as puzzled as anyone else about his``psychic readings.'' Under hypnosis, he was able to diagnose and prescribe solutions for the ailments of people he had never met, using medical terms that seemingly could not have been known to him.
Belief in Cayce is not necessary to grasp the inherrent drama of the situation. In fact, the less you know about Cayce, the more you will be drawn into the perplexity of the young man's situation.
Jim Turner brings an earnest and sincere bent to his portrayal of the young Cayce. Lee Christopher, though, is uneven as his wife, Gertrude - a factor that is perhaps a reflection of the ambiguous way in which the role is written. D.D. Delaney offers an eccentric, perhaps too eccentric, version of Squire Cayce, the prophet's father. Doctors, in an oversimplification, are pictured as either the ``enemy'' or, at the least, doubters. These roles are assigned to Frank McAffery, Wally Doyle, Ed Jones and Jim Mitchell.
The play, directed by Bob Nelson, is paced so slowly that it gives us much too much time to think, and question. The problems of transforming a meeting hall into a theater have not yet been solved.
The play has, quite rightfully, been questioned on factual grounds. It has been compressed and dramatized. (For example, the play states that Cayce was educated through the ninth grade. Material issued by his association says he went only through the seventh). Any factual compression could be forgiven, though, if the pay-off was more emotional.
``The Freak'' is worthwhile for its methodical and lyrical probing of a man faced with profound choices. It is more interesting on factual grounds than it is on emotional ones. ILLUSTRATION: Photo by EDGAR CAYCE FOUNDATION
The life of Edgar Cayce is explored in ``The Freak.''
THEATER REVIEW
What: ``The Freak,'' a play about Edgar Cayce by Granville Wyche
Burgess
Where: Association for Research and Enlightenment, 67th Street
and Atlantic Avenue, Virginia Beach
Who: Directed by Bob Nelson, featuring Jim Turner
When: Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m., Sunday at 2 p.m., continuing
through June 15.
How much: $15
Call: 428-3588 by CNB