Considering its main characters are Martin Luther, Doctor Faustus and Hamlet, “Wittenberg” seems about as exciting a prospect as audi ting a graduate school lecture. But the Pearl Theatre’s new production turns out to be a delightful romp that’s as accessible as it is thought-provoking.
Tom Stoppard, eat your heart out.
That two of the characters are fictional — Marlowe’s Faustus, Shakespeare’s Prince Hamlet — is just one of the evening’s ingenious concepts. The idea seems precious, but playwright David Davalos weaves together his intellectual and farcical ideas in such a way that it all works.
Set at the famed University of Wittenberg in 1517, the play presents Faustus (Scott Greer) as a freewheeling doctor who spends his spare time performing Bob Dylan-like folk songs at a pub.
“Remember to tip your wenches,” he says at the end of his set.
One of his patients is the beer-loving Rev. Luther (Chris Mixon), so agonized over the church’s policy of selling indulgences that he’s constipated.
“You are literally filled with s – – – ,” Faustus notes, and prescribes him a new beverage — one made from coffee beans. Meanwhile, Hamlet (Sean McNall) is in his senior year and can’t decide what to major in, which helps set off a spiritual crisis.
“Something is rotten in the papal state,” he complains, in one of the many playful allusions to lines by Shakespeare and Marlowe.
Even as it explores philosophical and religious themes, the play is filled with verbal and visual gags. Hamlet’s tennis racket is, naturally, a Prince, while the front door of the Castle Church, on which Luther is to post his 95 Theses, is littered with fliers.
The performers bring their iconic roles to vibrant life: Greer infuses Faustus with a Jack Black-style manic energy; Mixon is dryly funny as the conflicted Luther, and McNall delivers an amusing counterpoint to the Hamlet he played far more seriously at the Pearl a few seasons back. Also fine is Joey Parsons in several female roles, including the Virgin Mary.
At play’s end, Hamlet learns that his father has died under suspicious circumstances. But, as the lute-playing Faustus sings in the final number, “Que Sera Sera.”