Anita Gillette stars in Surfside Films production, "She and He"
Finn Murphy produces film on island with veteran actress
BY MARLI GUZZETTA
Connotation is one of the great phenomena of language; that a single word can mean so many things to so many people is yet another testament to the remarkable workings of the mind. This is a large reason why Nantucket actor and director Greg Bourbeau decided to adapt the dramatic script for "He and She" into a short film with his nascent film company, Surfside Films, and its executive producer, Finn Murphy.

Anita Gillette, center, has appeared on "Law & Order," "Mad About You," Frasier" and "Sex and the City," among many other television shows. Her film credits include "Moonstruck" and "Boys on the Side" among others. She was joined by John Devaney, left, and Greg Bourbeau at Arno's on Monday.

Starring veteran stage and screen actor Anita Gillette as the critically ill and hospital-bound "She," the short film focuses on a time spent in the hospital by a married couple who speak to one another in single words.

Gillette's credits are vast and varied - including "Moonstruck," "Boys on the Side" and just about every major hit television show of the last 15 years. She met Bourbeau while performing in a play with him. The two stayed in close touch, and when Bourbeau mentioned his idea for a short film, Gillette was all in.

Lauded Nantucket artist and actor John Devaney plays her husband, the "He" in "She and He."

Because the spouses speak to one another in single words, the majority of the story is told in the silent parts, like an Emily Dickinson poem. It's like "Waiting for Godot" unplugged - if that's even possible.

"If you were reading the script, my take on it would be, 'Oh, this is a scene in which a psychiatrist is giving a free-association test.' It's that sparse," Devaney said. "So the amount of context that needs to be supplied to that by an actor, never mind the director, is pretty substantial."

The result of the staccato dialogue is "emotional ping-pong," according to Devaney, who stepped into the shoes of "He" for the film, which shot in two frenetic days (after one rehearsal) at the Nantucket Cottage Hospital last weekend. Surfside Films imported a film crew from Manhattan to shoot in 35mm.

In "She and He," each word is a loaded weapon that keeps the story moving when it fires - not so much a Chekovian gun as, oh say, a Chekovian mousetrap, which is connected to another and another...

"When a character says a word and their response comes back, they are reliving that moment in their relationship," Bourbeau explained.

For example, one of the lines in the script is "Vietnam."

"The word 'Vietnam' for you is a totally different experience than 'Vietnam' for me, or for these guys," Bourbeau said.

In fact, even the words "he" and "she" are left up to viewer deconstruction.

"It's not on the page, who my character is, except that she could be almost anybody," said Gillette, who described the narrative trajectory as "zig-zag." "In one-word sentences, we have to fill in the blanks. This is not a one-person script. You can't look at that script as an actor, not knowing who you'll be with, and make choices about it. It's us. And the us of us is what comes through here. Hopefully, it will all be there for the camera."

Despite the difficulty of memorizing a script of one-word lines with very little preparation, both actors found that the non-verbal communication helped them to get present for the "scenes." ("Well, you call them scenes - but we didn't know they were scenes," joked Gillette to Bourbeau of the unorthodox and marathon dialogue organization in the script.)

Caitlin McDonough-Thayer, who plays a doctor in the film, had to impart a tremendous amount of meaning into the story without saying a word.

Because the characters have a conversation that spans the life of their relationship, the story is fascinating for the way it mirrors G. Stanley Hall's theory that ontology recapitulates physiology - which claims that the stages of every human's life echo the stage's of human evolution. (I happen to believe it's a valid theory.) And yet the fact that each viewer can witness an entirely different story is proof of the spirit's triumph over sameness.

"When I initially saw this play onstage, I was fascinated. I thought, 'That word meant 50 different things to 50 different people in that audience," Bourbeau said. "As a director, I felt it was my responsibility to get that on film and create the same situation in 8 minutes or 9 minutes."

I