Sight Unseen (play)
| Sight Unseen | |
|---|---|
| Written by | Donald Margulies |
| Date premiered | September 1991 |
| Place premiered |
South Coast Repertory Costa Mesa, California |
| Original language | English |
| Subject | A celebrated American artist reunites with his former lover fifteen years after they parted ways |
| Genre | Drama |
| Setting | England |
Sight Unseen is a play by Donald Margulies. The play premiered at South Coast Repertory in 1991, and then was produced Off-Broadway in 1992 and on Broadway in 2004.
Jonathan Waxman is a Brooklyn Jew who has become a very wealthy, critically acclaimed artist—his art works are bought "sight unseen." Happily married, with a pregnant wife, he travels to London for a retrospective of his work. While there, he impulsively decides to journey to the countryside to visit his former model and lover Patricia in the Norfolk farmhouse where she lives and works with her archeologist husband Nick, who is English. She had married this slightly older man in order to remain in England when her student visa expired.
Jonathan, whose father has recently died, is struggling with self-doubt and seeking to regain his artistic inspiration. While in England, he meets Grete, a young German scholar-journalist.
The play unfolds in a non-linear progression, with forward and backward jumps in time that eventually lead to the beginning of the relationship between Patricia and Jonathan, which ended without satisfactory closure.
The play was commissioned and first staged by South Coast Repertory, Costa Mesa, California in September 1991. Directed by Micheal Bloom, the cast included Stephen Rowe (Jonathan Waxman), Randy Oglesby (Nick), Elizabeth Norment (Patricia) and Sabina Weber (Grete).
The Off-Broadway production by the Manhattan Theatre Club opened on January 7, 1992 at the company's Stage II, where it ran for 103 performances. It transferred to the Orpheum Theatre, running for an additional 190 performances. Michael Bloom directed a cast that included Dennis Boutsikaris as Jonathan, Deborah Hedwall as Patricia, and Jon De Vries as Nick. Laura Linney appeared in the small supporting role of Grete, a young German journalist. Lou Liberatore replaced Boutsikaris and Margaret Colin replaced Hedwall later in the run.
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