It may not sound like much on
paper, but a few days into this
repeated routine and we begin
to envy the modest existence
Paterson has carved out for himself. So comfortable do we become with this cozy repetition
that when it’s interrupted by the
arrival of the weekend it feels
like a seismic disruption.
Paterson is a talented poet, inspired by Paterson native William Carlos Williams, but he’s
content to share his words solely
with his wife, who constantly
pleads with him to submit them
for publication, or at the very
least, make a xerox of his beloved ‘secret notebook’. He
begins to come around to this
idea, promising to make copies
of the notebook at the weekend, but an encounter with a
young girl whose own nascent
poetry seems beyond her years
stirs feelings of inadequacy in
Paterson. Few are as vulnerable
NJ STAGE 2016 - ISSUE 12
as those whose talent can’t be
measured by scientific means.
There are moments of comedy
that veer between the subtle
and the surreal. Paterson notices
twins everywhere - a pair of old
men on a bench on his way to
work, two brothers in the local
bar, the young poetess and her
sister - and when Laura takes
him to see a screening of 1932’s
Island of Lost Souls, he is struck
by the resemblance between his
wife and actress Kathleen Burke,
who plays that film’s ‘Panther
Woman’. Like so many husbands,
he’s not so quick to pick up on
the changes his wife makes to
their home, as she gradually
turns almost every piece of furnishing in the house a shade of
black and white. The most explicit laugh is reserved for the reveal that explains why Paterson
comes home to find his mailbox
stand knocked over every day.
Just as Paul Auster and Wayne
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