Chilean-American
author Ariel Dorfman is beloved in Boston
this season. Flat Earth held a reading of Dorfman and Tony Kushner’s WIDOWS
earlier this year, WIDOWS being the first in Dorfman’s Resistance Trilogy.
READER is the second and DEATH AND THE MAIDEN, the third play in the series.
Flat Earth
Theatre is currently staging READER (@ Arsenal Center through June 21st)
and Open Theatre Project continues the run with DEATH AND THE MAIDEN (in Jamaica
Plain through June 28th). MAIDEN is the most produced of the three:
I’ve seen it twice. And there’s a movie.
This is my first
READER experience and I must say that Flat Earth’s March production of WHAT
ONCE WE FELT kept intruding into my memory as I watched READER, as both are
about censorship and governmental control, especially where the flow of
information is concerned. Both use publishing as metaphor. As I type that
sentence, I’m reminded that our government is more than a little peeved
at a certain Mr. Snowden for publishing information they didn’t want us to
know. Maybe the repression in READER isn’t as far fetched as it seems to be.
As in Dorfman’s
DEATH AND THE MAIDEN, the audience is unsure who is telling the truth, or for
that matter, what is the truth. The characters in READER aren’t what they seem
to be, either. On the surface we meet a censor, not just any censor. He’s a
successful bureaucrat who hasn’t made a mistake in 20 years. His boss
appreciates his work but his son isn’t satisfied with life, even though they’re
all told this is paradise and “anyone who isn’t happy in Paradise
is crazy.”
Life starts to
unravel for the censor: His son won’t sign the loyalty paper and now he’s
asking about his mother’s death. The book he’s currently working on (i.e.
removing offending passages and cutting unnecessary detail) seems to be about
him! Disturbing information seeps through: Things he doesn’t want made public:
Talk of readjustment centers, violence, torture. Wait a minute, Dorfman is
writing about Chile….isn’t
he?
While I
certainly admire playwrights who create torturous narratives so we the audience
can have a (granted, very small) taste of the confusion and distress whole
nations suffer on a daily basis, they’re a bit difficult to take…and more
importantly, they’re extremely hard to stage. Kudos to director Jake Scaltreto
for placing the audience on both sides of the theater, trapping the action in
the center and for setting a slightly arched, artificial tone to the material.
Matthew Zahnzinger
is brilliantly effective as “The Man” you never, never want to request your
presence. His white face and asthmatic delivery make him terrifying. A visit
from Samuel Frank as “The Director” of the censorship bureau isn’t going to be any
fun, either. His manic stance and wild eyes don’t bode well for a pat on the
back. Robin Gabrielli is the man at the center of this Kafkaesque tale. Will he
help his son (James Hayward)? Did he harm his wife (Sara Jones)? Will he
disappoint his mistress (Rachel Sachs)? Will he publish? Or is resistance
futile?
