THE IDIOT
At the Manhattan Ensemble Theater, 55 Mercer St. Call TeleCharge (212) 239-6200.
THE LONDON CUCKOLDS
At the Blue Heron Art Center, 123 E. 24th St, (212) 290-1595. Through March 24
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THEATER today lacks the air, the rush, the width of Shakespeare or the sweep of Dickens or Dostoyevsky.
Today’s plays tend toward the intensity of Chekhov or Ibsen, focusing on the psychological situation of a family in the course of a day or, at best, a few days.
A number of artists are looking to fill this gap.
There’s the Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago, which will be offering Ken Kesey’s “One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest” in New York next month.
And at a newly and sharply refurbished house, the Manhattan Ensemble Theater under director David Fishelson will offer a repertoire of plays based on classic European novels.
Fishelson has started with his own adaptation of Dostoyevsky’s “The Idiot,” written in 1868. “The Idiot” tells the story of a young man arriving in St. Petersburg from an asylum. He’s Prince Myshkin, noble and naive, tense and troubled, with the honesty and stupidity that can belong only to the insufferably good. John Lenartz, who’s performed the role before, is remarkable; he seems to know this person.
Society regards him simply as a prime catch. Angela Vitale is amusing and aggressive as a mother with two marriageable daughters, Aglaya (a winning Abigail Lopez) and Adelaida.
But Prince Myshkin’s is drawn to the wild Nastasya, played by a beautiful, spirited, conscience-stricken Roxanna Hope. Nastasya’s other suitor is sexy, fierce, fiery Rogozhin, enacted with savage ardor by Triney Sandoval.
Among these folk the drama of desire and salvation, of body and soul is played out in scenes ranging from “the Yepanchin home” to “a corner of Palace Square” to “a clinic in Switzerland.” The production doesn’t match its lead players – it has on the whole an amateurish, crowded feel.
Director Fishelson has not taken the time to smooth the edges. But the thrust is right and the future is bright.
The dramatists of the Restoration (1660-1710) all wrote at least one comedy centering upon a marriage in crisis.
Recently rediscovered from that period is playwright Edward Ravenscroft, whose “The London Cuckolds” of 1681 was been brought to life in London in the 1980s and at the National Theatre in the 1990s.
“The London Cuckolds” received its American premiere a few years ago from director Owen Thompson, and he’s reviving it now at the Blue Heron.
It is a fairly simplistic play where marriage is cheerfully violated and assaulted until almost all the males are thrown in prison and the women are left free in a sexless world.
Thompson views the play as “‘The Benny Hill Show’ disguised as ‘Masterpiece Theatre.'” Alas, Thompson gives us a version that is neither.
First of all, the look is nonsensical: on an empty set, backed by a painting supposed to evoke London, characters prate and prance. A bed is dragged on at one point in order that an adulterous couple might rut rather crudely. Even Benny Hill would disdain such gross pranks.
Then the costumes: fans are worn outdoors and sported by maids; all the males look like Victorian servants. Why not just modernize the whole thing and have people dressed contemporaneously?
As for the acting, virtually every line is shouted. In a small theater, this is quite annoying. And everyone seems to have different accents.
Restoration comedy should be done well – by which I don’t mean traditionally – or not at all.
Still, amid the mess, Eve Kaminsky is a saucy erring wife. Jeff Gurner makes a short, funny, drunken ladies’ man. Jeffrey M. Bender is cunning and amusing as professional seducer Valentine.
But on the whole this is a disastrous attempt to capitalize on the rediscovery of Ravenscroft.