Bach at Leipzig

Reviewed by Neal Weaver
The Group Rep at Lonny Chapman Theatre
Through May 1 

RECOMMENDED

Itamar Moses’ historical farce is a rich theatrical pudding, served up with a sauce of meta-theatrics and comic anarchy, and garnished with zany characters and situations. The action occurs at the Thomaskirche in Leipzig, Germany in 1722. The nation is trembling on the brink of war, and a ragged bandit is making the roads around Leipzig unsafe for travelers.

When Johan Kuhnau, the revered organist at the Thomaskirche, suddenly dies at his keyboard, the search is on to find his replacement. From all over Germany, the most renowned organists, Kantors, and Kapellmeisters gather, lured by the competition for the illustrious and profitable position. There are seven of them (there is an eighth, but he remains stubbornly offstage), and all of them are ambitious, venal, unscrupulous, and willing to do almost anything to secure the prize, including forming secret alliances, and indulging in polite blackmail. Plots and counter-plots ensue.

Schott (Larry Eisenberg) is an arch-conservative who wants the position so he can use his influence to rout the musical innovators and preserve the purity of the German musical tradition. He is opposed by Fasch (Chris Winfield), who loathes the tyranny of traditional forms and is all for innovation. Lenck (Troy Whitaker) is an impoverished pickpocket and con-man who fancies himself an expert gambler, till he loses both his money and his clothes in a card-game.

Kaufmann (Lloyd Pedersen) is an addled and incredibly gullible man who mistakenly believes that all the intrigues going on around him are a theatrical performance of a comedy called “The Incredibly Gullible Man.” The Greatest Organist in Germany (Steve Terrell) doesn’t really want the job, but pretends to seek it in order to pressure his current employers to increase his salary.

Graupner (Todd Andrew Ball), a vain, prissy creature, is steamed that he’s generally regarded as everybody’s second choice. And Steindorff (Mikel Parraga-Wills), the handsomest and most dashing of the candidates, is an enthusiastic womanizer. He’s so resented by the other candidates that 6 out of 7 of them drug him; he’s kidnapped, stripped, and left bound and semi-naked in the nearby forest, from which he emerges, in a loin-cloth, to rejoin the fray.

It’s virtually impossible to unravel the convoluted plot, but it leads to all-out war among the candidates, culminating in fisticuffs, sword-play and general mayhem.

Moses’ clever and erudite script scrambles the historic facts to serve his own comic purposes, and it’s typical of his willfully wayward game-playing that the title character, Johan Sebastian Bach, never actually appears, though we do briefly hear him playing the organ offstage. And the character whom we are repeatedly told has the most beautiful speaking voice in Germany is never allowed to utter a word.

Calvin Remsberg provides the energetic, sometimes manic direction. He has gathered an able ensemble of actors who keep the action bubbling along. Eisenberg, Pedersen, and the athletic Parraga-Wills take the acting honors, though it’s up to Winfield to do the heavy lifting.  J. Kent Inasy provides the huge and handsome faux marble set. A. Jeffrey Schoenberg supplies the attractive and detailed 18^th Century costumes, and the wonderful wigs are by Wig Rescue.

The Group Rep at Lonny Chapman Theatre, 10900 Burbank Boulevard, North Hollywood. Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 2 p.m.; through May 1. (818) 763-5990 or www.thegrouprep.com.  Running time: two hours and 40 minutes with one 15 minute intermission.