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A CurtainUp Review
The Idiot
|
The worst insult of our age is to tell a man he's not original -- money endows us with originality
-- Ganya, a poor man ready to marry a woman he does not love in order to thus endow himself. |
 Roxanne Hart and John Lenartz |
Manhattan Ensemble Theater has launched itself in a smartly, renovated 140-seat SoHo space (formerly known as Synchronicity Space), with a handsomely mounted dramatization of Dostoyevsky own favorite novel, The Idiot. Bravo! The theater's comfortable seating and deep, raked stage is a fine addition to the Off-Broadway scene. The dramatization written and directed by MET's founding artistic director David Fishelson is an excellent choice to establish the new company's declared mission of bringing classic novels and other works of literature to the stage with the kind of large casts that have become luxuries for most companies.
Dostoyevsky's story is set in St. Petersburg circa the 1860s. Its hero is Prince Myshkin (John Lenartz), a man of extraordinary goodness, honesty and charm. Myshkin who, after years of treatment for epilepsy in a Swiss sanitarium returns with nothing but a small bundle of belongings to the gossipy and money-oriented society of his native city. As Melville's sailors were captivated by Billy Budd's purity, so the members of St. Petersburg's tangled world of passion and jealousy are attracted to Myshkin's outspoken sincerity. As his epileptic fits used to make him seem like an idiot, his innocence at first strikes some of St. Petersburg sophisticates as idiotic. But Myshkin is more saintly than foolish and quickly demands and gets respect.
The impoverished Prince's first encounter is with Rogozhin (Triney Sandoval) a rich but brutish fellow who's madly in love with a complicated lady of easy virtue, Nastasya Filipovna (Roxanna Hope). Nastasya is the object of quite a few other gentlemen's sexual desires -- including General Yepanchin (Peter Goldfarb) whose wife (Angela Vitale) is a distant relative of Myshkin's, and the General's aide Ganya (Gibson Fraser) who wants to marry Nastasya for money (a payoff from a protector who rejected her) even though he loves the General's daughter Aglaya (Abigail López). Myshkin, abetted by the Yepanchins, is swept up in the social whirl. He also comes into a legacy of three million rubles and soon has Nastasya and Aglaya vying for his love.
As you can see all these characters and situations make for a long story and as this play doesn't fit the current vogue for small casts, neither do its epic proportions fit a the ever more popular ninety -minute time frame. Happily Mr. Fishelson's dramatization never seems overly long and he has managed to plumb the depths of Myshkin's spirit without getting bogged down by the novel's religious overtones. The ending, typical of Dostoyevsky, is hardly of the happily ever after variety, but getting there is not at all heavy. Most important to the enjoyment of this production, is the fine cast and the state of the art production values.
John Lenartz is an utterly endearing Prince. As another version of the story I saw a few season's ago (see review), it's easy to take Myshkin over the top. Mr. Lenartz never does. Even the shattering finale, when his sensitive nature falls victim to the events around him, is dramatic but not melodramatic.
Both Roxanna Hope as Nastasya and Abigail López as Aglaya are excellent as the two young women who want to marry Myshkin, but it's Angela Vitale as the clear-eyed, sharp-tongued Mrs. Yepanchin who takes top honors as the real general of the Yepanchin family. I could go on about the virtues of the other performers, but with a cast of fifteen, suffice it to say, that all do honor to their roles.
Richard Hoover, who created the spectacular all-gray set for Not About Nightingales ( Not About Nightingales) has literally stretched the stage so that the audience feels part of the setting. A mural of St. Petersburg runs along one side of the theater and stage and an upstage doorway giving illusion of distance. The scene shifts are effected with carpets and furnishings brought on and off the stage by members of the cast. Susan L. Soetaert's elegant period costumes are gorgeous, with several color-coordinated ensemble tableaus that could have stepped from portrait paintings at the other Met, the museum. The trenchant lighting design of Brian Aldous completes the splendid staging.
Because a lot of money has gone into the renovation of its new home ($500,000-- the company's annual operating budget is $750,000) The Idiot will be the first and only offering of the company's premier season. Future plans call for three productions per season. The short list of literary greats likely to be dramatized includes: Bronte, Mann, Kafka, Dickens, Gogol, Tolstoy, Stendhal. If a critic might be permitted to throw a suggestion into the hat -- how about Thackeray's Vanity Fair?
by Feodor Dostoyevsky Dramatized and Directed by David Fishelson Cast (alphabetical order): Carl Bradford, ChristianConn, Gibson Frazier, Peter Goldfarb, Karl Herlinger, Roxanna Hope, John Kinsherf, Jerusha Klemperer, John Lenartz, Abigail López, Tricia Norris, Kevin Orton, Triney Sandoval, April Sweeney, Angela Vitale Set Design: Richard Hoover Lighting Design: Brian Aldous Costume Design: Susan L. Soetaert Running Time: 3 hours, including two intermissions. Manhattan Ensemble Theatre, 55 Mercer St. (Soho) www.met.com -- 239-6200.  Tue - Sat at 8pm; Sat at 2pm; Sun at 3pm -- tickets $40 Performances from 2/21/02; opening 2/28/01 for an open-ended run. Reviewed by Elyse Sommer based on 2/24 performance |
