Two high-school students assess 'Third' at the Guthrie Theater

Editor’s Note: The Minnesota High School Press Association annually selects promising young high-school journalists to visit the Guthrie Theater for a day-long session that includes lectures, a tour and a chance to see and write reviews of a Guthrie show. In March, about 30 students saw Wendy Wasserstein’s final play, “Third,” and submitted reviews. The two reviews below rose to the top of the heap and were selected for publication on the Star Tribune’s website.

By Hannah Rank, Special to the Star Tribune

Wendy Wasserstein’s “Third” takes you on a wonderful journey involving three generations of people searching for something that they can define, in the process realizing a definition may be the exact thing they want to avoid.

The story follows renowned professor of English Laurie Jameson (Sally Wingert) as she begins to traverse the land of the middle-aged, as well as her relationships and their evolution. The play deals with life, death, self-reclamation and the thought of becoming exactly what you strove not to be.

The set, a large box that contains all the characters and that changes background according to the theme of the scene, is a constant and remarkably brilliant reminder that all of the play’s characters, even the self-proclaimed  über-liberal Jameson, categorize and place people into their designated stereotypes.

Wasserstein also fits the characters into their own extreme stereotypes: the liberal East Coast professor striving to make a difference on the world; her daughter, the Swarthmore student struggling to find her place; the doe eyed chuckling jock who sways back and forth excitedly, waiting for his next wrestling match; and the senile old father who “can’t remember his way to the bathroom but refuses to wear diapers”.

But what makes “Third” truly remarkable is the way it breaks those stereotypes as it progresses, gradually revealing that each of the characters possesses a quality negating the stereotypical ones.

A key example is athletic-scholarship honoree Woodson Bull III (Tony Clarno). His violently annoying hand gestures and head nods reminiscent of every jock I have ever met— on TV that is — may make you write him off as worth forgetting, but, once he opens his mouth, a wonderful breadth of knowledge comes out.

This comes as more than just a shock to his teacher Jameson, who, in turn, makes a decision that will require her to question all of what she believes about how to teach.

This decision is a shocking development in the middle-aged professor’s journey of self-discovery, and also for the audience, who are all the while wondering whether or not to hate this woman in the process.

All five characters shine in this exquisite piece, which, I believe, is ultimately about love. As we all hopefully know, love is a journey of discovery, and the parallels Wasserstein draws between Jameson’s journey and one of love are truly worth watching.

Hannah Rank attends St. Paul Academy.

By Charl Coetzee, Special to the Star Tribune

Imagine, if you will, the distance between a 67-year-old woman and an 18-year-old man. When a theater production elicits a, “Wow, that was excellent” from each, it must be doing something right.

“Third,” written by Wendy Wasserstein, is a coming-of-middle-age tale centered on Laurie Jameson (Sally Wingert), a liberal English professor at an East Coast university who has risen to the top of her field by rejecting societal stereotypes and marching to the beat of her own drum.

As her fall class, “Un-corseting Elizabethan Drama” begins, Laurie meets Woodson Bull III (Tony Clarno), or Third, a typical jock with a not-so-typical mind. Laurie immediate dislikes him, viewing Third as a “living dead white guy.”

Soon after joining her class, Third writes a paper that contradicts Laurie’s feminist lectures. Laurie does not believe that someone like Third could write such a sophisticated paper and accuses him of plagiarism. This act sets the rest of the play into motion, following Laurie and Third as they react to the incident.

The key to the show rests on Wingert’s shoulders and she handles the pressure with aplomb. She channels the tough English teacher so naturally that I sank lower into my seat to avoid her gaze. Her character has many wrinkles, from the mother worrying over her daughter, to the daughter carrying for her deteriorating father, to the best friend worried about her breast cancer-stricken friend, and Wingert grabs Between the lines of “Third” lies a cautionary tale for both liberals and conservatives, warning about the difficulties that arise from close-mindedness. Ironically, Laurie’s insistence on maintaining an open mind and not judging those who are different prejudices her against Third and makes her compromise her beliefs. At one point, Laurie remarks that while her aggressively feminine views were revolutionary in 1969, she hasn’t questioned her beliefs in more than 30 years.

Through Laurie, Wasserstein, a renowned liberal who wrote “Third” while she herself was battling cancer that would eventually kill her, is essentially questioning herself and challenging other liberals like her to do the same. Despite its funny bits, the heartfelt self-reflection shines through and gives “Third” a power that makes you say, “Wow, that was excellent.”
Charl Coetzee attends St. Paul Academy.