Given the choice between juvenile hall and community service, 15 year-old Zan Hardt (Gerardo Navarro) naturally chooses the latter. Breaking the fourth wall, he explains indenture as reading to “temporarily displaced librarian,” 40 year-old Dorothy Ross (Dana Jacks) in a convalescent home, three days a week for three months.
“Not everyone can point to the moment when his life changed. This is mine,” he tells us. The play evolves in chapters as called out by its players. Curiously, this doesn’t diminish its effect. Except for somewhat reduced eyesight, we don’t know what’s wrong with Dorothy. She’s gentle, smart, tired and wry. Zan is initially sulky and combative.
The first book he chooses from her shelves, because it’s short, is The Old Man and the Sea. There’s a begrudging spark. Dorothy regularly sends him for additional volumes picked out by former coworkers. The teenager has never been in a library. “They let anybody in!” In chapter two, they read a gardening book – she has a garden at home – because of the pictures.
Chapter three introduces the young man to a dictionary. He protests one can just Google a meaning. (Echoes of today’s youth.) Dorothy points out that the “process” of using a dictionary allows for serendipity. “You miss all the ancillary benefits, seeing a word nearby, etymology.”
The colloquial use of the word “like” is beautifully explained. The selection of a book of knots is intriguing and, like other titles, chosen for metaphoric content. (They’ll mean more to those who read.) An incident with cats is droll. Slowly the pair achieve a pattern, but the playwright’s originality keeps the story from becoming rote. Zan shows signs of curiosity and he reveals a little about his home situation.
Dorothy is increasingly frail and, as a heart monitor arrives, we learn about her health. Zan becomes concerned, one day helping her to bed, another, staying past time. Moby Dick becomes private reading. “Someday I might work on a boat,” he ventures, emboldened. “Someday you might own a boat,” she counters. Interaction is gradual, realistic, subtle where in other hands it could’ve been Hallmark. A relationship is established. The pair have a touching adventure – at Zan’s instigation.
At the end of the piece, Zan reads from a dictionary of favorite words that Dorothy has compiled. This section of the piece is marvelous. (”uh-whar-ay”) The Japanese have a word… aware… “the bittersweetness of a brief, fading moment of transcendent beauty.” Like the cherry blossoms. Or… Pohoda. A Czech word that means favorable weather. And happiness…
Dana Jacks is terrific. We feel every bit of Dorothy’s progressive physical and emotional states. The actress infuses her characterization with sensitivity and dignity. Love of words is infectious. Life experience arrives as whole cloth.
Gerardo Navarro looks too old for the part which one has to get past. Churlish temperament is a bit heavy handed. Performance improves as Zan increasingly expresses empathy for Dorothy.
Though set design by Yijun Yang is economic, thoughtful detail works well. Every book on the heroine’s shelves has a label with its Dewey Decimal number, however. How could she hold onto this many library books? A window effectively becomes background sea (projection); translucent curtain separates an expedition with home base of the convalescent home. Summer Jack’s costumes are realistic down to their wear and tear. Sound design by Tate Abdullah utilizes short runs of piano notes as atmospheric punctuation. It works.
The playwright might reconsider three small, jarring moment’s words: In chapter five, speaking to us, Zan calls his friend, Dorothy, the single time in the play he breaks from the established “Miss Ross.” At one point, he uses the word “ain’t”, anachronistic and out of character. At another, she sends him for “soda pop” from a hall machine. The term is out of place.
Worthy and well produced.
Clinton B Photography
The Tenth Annual Women in Theater Festival presents
Dorothy’s Dictionary by E.M. Lewis
Co-Directed by Andrew W. Smith and Michole Biancosino
Through June 29, 2025
A.R.T. NY Theatres
502 West 53rd Street
