Dying Is Easy, Comedy Is Hard

Red Noses

Written by Peter Barnes

Directed by Nestor Davidson

At the Loeb Mainstage

Through this weekend

IF Ingmar Bergman were dead, he might be rolling in his grave over the Harvard-Radcliffe Dramatic Club's production of Red Noses. But since he's alive, he'd more likely by rolling in the aisles.

The Swedish director, whose film The Seventh Seal has become the classic portrait of plague-stricken medieval Europe, would probably be surprised to see a play that finds humor where he found existential gloom. And he might be shocked to see mortals play games with Death--and win.

Peter Barnes' Noses offers a perspective on human misery almost antithetical to that of the dark and despairing Seventh Seal. Barnes interprets the expression "black humor" literally, making it the basis for an inquiry into the comic aspects of a death-obsessed era.

Set in 14th century France, when the Black Plague was turning Europe into a mass graveyard, Noses tells the story of one Father Flote, a priest with revolutionary ideas about the role of religion in people's lives. Flote, played with amazing grace by Michael Starr, rebels against the penitents and clergy who argue that the plague is God's punishment for humanity's sins. The only way to save the world, say the penitents, is through pain--self-inflicted or otherwise.

Flote, however, takes a more benevolent view. He believes that religion should make people's lives easier, not harder, and proposes to bring mirth to the suffering masses. The priest forms Christ's Clowns--the play takes its name from the red noses they don--and sets off on his humorous crusade.

STARR plays Flote as a religious fanatic with simple faith. Though Starr has difficulty when it comes to singing, at other times his voice is appropriately tremulous and sincere.

Flote vies with the penitents for the benediction of the Church, personified by the Archbishop Monselet (Panayotis Agapitos), who ultimately favors Flote to spite his grave assistant, Father Toulon (Stefan Howells). Monselet is a purple-clad fop whose sole concern is for his own safety, and Agapitos' performance is as biting as it is hysterical.

Soon, Toulon meets Sister Marguerite, a nun who is frustrated in her attempts to get raped. Heather Gunn, as Marguerite, gives the play's best performance. Shrill and shrewd, Gunn glides from comedy to tragedy to opera, landing squarely on top of each one. She even gets Howells' grumpy Toulon to smile on occasion.

DESPITE exceptional acting by most of Christ's Clowns, however, their crusade is not as humorous as playwright Barnes intends. Try as the actors and director do, they fail to turn Barnes' anti-clerical, left-leaning lines into truly hysterical happenings. Barnes' comic moments are often one-liners, and they grow few and far between as the play progresses. Some of the lines even seem anachronistic--like the one about God: "She is Black."

When the plague starts to abate and things begin to return to normal, the troupe starts to disintegrate. So does the play. One by one, members abandon the happy life of the wandering clown in pursuit of more earthly professions. And as they leave, the play grows more and more serious.

After three hours of levity among corpses, both Barnes' script and the actors fave a hard time convincing the audience that the time for sadness has come now that the dying is done. Barnes continues to hammer at the same arguments, the same feminist, anti-clerical strains that he has touted all along. Whatever power they had earlier in the play, these ideas are already beginning to lose their comic appeal, and when made serious, they fall flat. The actors--who look ridiculous to start with in their spectacularly clean frocks, rags and robes--really cannot effect the change with much success.

STILL, Noses is a vivid example of what resources like extra money, use of the Loeb Manistage and some help from the professionals at the American Repertory Theater can do; try producing this play with its 30-member cast in, say, the basement of Adams House. Director Nestor Davidson makes good use of the large stage, both visually and spatially. The set seems accurate in its frugality, focusing attention on the players and not the stage--though Davidson does sneak in some impressive special effects. In one scene, for example, alleged heretics are literally noosed onstage while other characters examine the famed erections of the hanged men.

Davidson also manages to coordinate his unwieldy cast; the actors never bump into each other because they exit awkwardly or stand in the wrong place. And as they strut and fret their four hours upon the stage, the players really could be acting our Everyman before a medieval audience.

Technical issues aside, Red Noses remains an exhausting effort. In fact--for audience and company alike--the play is a lot like reading Faulkner: both are appealing but draining. Barnes' scenes are almost as long as Faulkner's sentences, and it takes stamina to tramp through both. Yet the effort is well worth it. And at the end of this extraordinary production, it can be said of all involved that they endured.