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The Dance of Death
Reviewed by Deborah Klugman
A Noise Within
Through Nov. 22.
RECOMMENDED:
Reviewers and scholars invariably describe Strindberg’s The Dance of Death as depicting a miserable marriage between a dissolute army captain and his bored, embittered wife. The characters are frequently remarked upon as prototypes for Edward Albee’s George and Martha.
In the production at A Noise Within, however, the unraveling of the relationship between the bombastic Edgar (Geoff Elliott) and his snarky spouse Alice (Susan Angelo) seems not nearly as primary or as riveting as the utter psychological and physiological dismantling of the complex and difficult captain. This is an observation, not a criticism, as it relates to Elliott’s brilliant and gripping performance.
Co-directed by Elliott and Julia Rodriguez-Elliott, the play – in a contemporary adaptation by Irish playwright Conor McPherson’s — is set on a remote Scandinavian island in the 1890s. Nearing their 25th anniversary, Edgar and Alice, who was an actress before her marriage, inhabit a dank old fortress, in bygone days a prison for criminals. It’s a prison for them as well, despite their freedom to come and go at will. Bored and unhappy, tormented by money problems, they commonly release their vitriol and anxiety on each other.
A break in the isolated tedium of their lives manifests with the arrival of Alice’s cousin Kurt (Eric Curtis Johnson) whom the couple hasn’t seen in 15 years. Kurt has come to the island for professional reasons, to act as administrator for a medical quarantine facility established by the government.
A quiet, principled man, Kurt still nurtures wounds from his own painful divorce and losing custody of his children. Put off by how the couple treat each other, he nonetheless tries his best to help, especially after it becomes clear that the captain is seriously ill. With admirable restraint, he tolerates Edgar’s bullying and insults, while at the same time becoming drawn to Alice, who purposefully sets out to seduce and, ultimately, humiliate him. After Alice reveals Edgar’s role in destroying Kurt’s marriage, Kurt breaks, his years of carefully cultivated equilibrium shattered.
The Dance of Death takes a bit of patience at the outset: Edgar and Alice bicker away, all the while filling us in on what’s brought them to this unhappy state. (At first Angelo’s Alice was more subdued than I anticipated; a partner like Elliott’s Edgar might drive any woman to thoughts of homicide.)
But once Kurt appears and the true state of the tyrannical Edgar becomes clear – his deteriorating health as well the depth of his anger and his fear – things start to cook. The vestiges of normalcy fall away and passions – including the terror of death and an unchained Eros – play out before us, raw and unchecked. It’s not a pretty picture, but to the directors’ credit we never lose sight not just of what’s torn these two people apart, but of what has always kept them together.
A Noise Within, 3352 E. Foothill Blvd., Pasadena, in rep through Nov. 22. 626.356.3100, ext. 1 or www.anoisewithin.org
