‘The Designated Mourner” is now acknowledged not just as Wallace Shawn’s masterpiece, but as a major achievement of political American theater.
But the most remarkable thing about the revival that opened at the Public Theater last night is just how overrated the play is — it’s just rage against the windmill.
The show debuted in London in 1996, followed by a New York premiere four years later. That first local production took place in an abandoned building for audiences of 30; the action even moved to a different room after intermission.
This setting may have helped sharpen the play’s dystopian-ish themes. And at three meandering hours, “The Designated Mourner” needs sharpening.
The current version is similar in all but location, as it reunites the original cast of Shawn, Deborah Eisenberg and Larry Pine with director André Gregory. This production is actually part of a mini-celebration of the 40-year collaboration between Shawn and Gregory, held jointly by the Public and Theater for a New Audience.
Mainstream audiences know Shawn mostly for playing Vizzini in “The Princess Bride.” But he’s always had a parallel career as an engaged writer and actor. Here he plays Jack, the deceptively chummy survivor of a vague social and political unraveling. The upheaval took out Jack’s wife, Judy (Eisenberg), and her father, Howard (Pine).
Those two former members of the cultural elite are described as being both out of touch and necessary, and appear as ghost-like characters. The gaunt Eisenberg — in real life, a short-story writer and Shawn’s companion — is a striking presence, her waxy face highlighted by crimson lipstick and red-rimmed eyes.
At times the text achieves a hypnotic flow, and there are moments of bleak humor, as when Jack reminisces that “Judy knew absolutely nothing about sex, so she didn’t mind. Needless to say, I never pointed out to her, ‘Christ, you know, if you like me, you should try a man who can really do this.’ ”
Gregory’s direction, greatly enhanced by Bruce Odland’s music and sound design, keeps a tight focus on the trio, and occasionally suggests an apocalyptic death of culture.
But mostly the evening is an indulgent grind that gives off vibes of intellectual sophistication — but just that, vibes. Other Shawn plays, like “Aunt Dan and Lemon” and “Marie and Bruce,” appear more conventional but actually hit harder, politically speaking — they draw in the audience to better manipulate it.
Here, we stay on the outside.
“I was clever enough to know that John Donne was offering something that was awfully enjoyable,” Jack says of the poet his father-in-law used to love. “I just wasn’t clever enough to actually enjoy it . . . I was kept out of it all, kept away.”
It’s hard not to feel the same about this show. And what good is political art that willfully shuts out the audience?