The Last Days of Don Juan
Reviewed by Taylor Kass
Classical Theatre Lab with The City of West Hollywood’s Free Theatre in the Park
Through August 11
If The Last Days of Don Juan has a moral, it might as well be this: don’t have sex, ’cause you will get dragged to hell and die. While its unforgiving ending is foreshadowed by its title, The Last Days of Don Juan is a mostly-lighthearted romp written in the 17th century by Tirso de Molina, a Catholic monk turned Spanish Golden Age playwright. Don Juan (Carlo Figlio) is a carefree, careless playboy who leaves broken hearts and deflowered maidens wherever he goes. His affinity for seducing every woman he meets leads to broken engagements, mistaken identities, and bed tricks. Nick Dear’s adaptation of the original text is fresh and fast-paced while retaining a sprinkling of beautiful, lyrical textual images.
At first pass, The Last Days of Don Juan seems like a well-structured, imaginative comedy of errors. It’s raunchy, funny, and violent. Then, playwright Tirso de Molina seems to suddenly remember that he’s a man of God. The play’s dip into the mystical is completely out of left field: Dona Anna (Carolyn Crotty), another woman duped by Don Juan, suddenly becomes a witch after a duel between Don Juan and her father goes horribly wrong — and then there’s the ghost who shows up to dinner. The play veers sharply away from the comedic to become a didactic warning against a libertine lifestyle, using a deus ex machina plot device to morally denounce our free-wheeling protagonist.
The Classical Theatre Lab has partnered with the City of West Hollywood to stage Don Juan in the pretty (and, thankfully, shady) King’s Road Park, but the too-bare set (by Susan Deeley Wells) and awkward staging (by director Suzanne Hunt) seem to sabotage the opportunities that this non-traditional, natural setting offers. The costumes (also by Wells), while cohesive, are your run-of-the-mill classical theatre fare: think puffy white shirts, long brocade dresses, and a Don Juan who is dressed very much like Zorro.
For the most part, the cast leans into a bombastic, over-the-top acting style. Michael Sturgis as Tisbea completely commits to the campy tone of the piece without sacrificing his character’s dignity. Casting a man as a love-struck peasant girl could have turned Tisbea into a caricature of a woman scorned, but this Tisbea is multifaceted and as endearing as she is hilarious. Another standout performance is Cesar di Bello as the cuckolded Duke Octavio, who is cheerfully charming and adorably earnest.
While this production’s opening performance felt somewhat under-rehearsed, it was undoubtedly energetic and thoroughly watchable. However, the pedantic pre-show speech that attempts to connect the themes of Don Juan to the #MeToo movement is wholly unnecessary. This production is clear, accessible and entertaining enough to speak for itself.
Kings Road Park, 1000 N. King Road, West Hollywood; Sat.-Sun., 3 p.m.; through Aug. 11 (Note: no performances on Jul. 21 or Aug. 3). https://www.classicaltheatrelab.org/. Running time: one hour and 30 minutes with no intermission.
