Theater Reviews

Sep 6, 2009 - Ageless Repertory Theatre's "Don Juan in Hell" can't overcome G.B. Shaw's long, long sermon on what ails us

By Jack Neal

Great dinner parties are more often than not laced with scintillating conversation. But when the dessert course is over and the conversation begins to lag, it’s yawn time. So it is with George Bernard Shaw’s long, long sermon on what ails us – “Don Juan in Hell” (about 90 minutes) - from Act III of “Man and Superman.”

That’s pretty much sums up what happened with Saturday night’s (9/5/09) Ageless Repertory Theatre presentation at Reno’s First United Methodist Church. Concert readings of “Don Juan” – four actors reading in evening clothes from scripts on music stands – were made especially attractive during the 1950s, when Charles Boyer played Don Juan, Charles Laughton the Devil and Agnes Moorhead played Dona Anna, with Sir Cedric Hardwick as Dona Ana’s father (“who,” annoyingly to Ana, “art in heaven”).

Reno’s Ageless Repertory Theatre has become a cozy acting company for seasoned (a.k.a. seniors) actors who want to act sans memorizing lines, building sets and donning costumes. It’s a neat idea and a worthy enterprise. One of the drawbacks to such concert performances is that reading actors rarely fully realize characters.

In this presentation, with Sharon Maddux as Dona Ana (she also directed), Cleb Maddux as Don Juan, Len Overholser as Ana’s father, and George Randolph as the Devil, “Don Juan in Hell” gets Shaw’s points across, often with Shaw’s acerbic bite nicely intact, without really elevating the proceeding to the high art of riveting theater.

The conceit of this play within a play – it’s actually a dream – has the principal characters of Tirso de Molina’s 17th-century drama “The Rake of Seville and the Stone Guest” (better known as Mozart’s 18th-century opera “Don Giovanni”) holding a reunion in Hell. Dona Ana has just arrived there and is surprised not to be in the other place. She is confronted by Don Juan, her seducer and her father’s murderer. They are joined by her father, the Commandatore and a statue (thanks to Mozart) of considerable fame. Ana’s father dearest is a resident of Heaven, an address he wants to change for the greater challenges of Hell. Lucifer himself joins this disruptive collection of people who find the grass greener elsewhere (Don Juan, too, wants a change of address), and has a field day poking holes into a vast array of arguments.

The arguments are, of course, Shaw’s. And Shaw has never been one to make a point once, if he can make it two - or three - times. That’s where the frustration takes place with a reading that isn’t as mellifluous as one might hope. Composer Irving Berlin said it so well (the lyric is actually by Beda Loehner): “The song has ended, but the melody lingers on.” When Shaw’s words begin to wear thin, the magic of vocal melody must carry the day and that’s the rub.

The velvety sounds of George Randolph come closest to capturing that magic, but as triumphant as this quartet of actors attempt to be (and often are) - with gallant assists from organist (lots of Bach) and pianist (lots of Mozart) Gloria Melms - Ageless Repertory Theatre’s “Don Juan in Hell” missed the last gaggle of angels on their lift-off to that much desired change of address by at least fifteen minutes.

Next up for Ageless Repertory Theatre is Neil Simon’s “Plaza Suite” September 15 (2009) at the Laxalt Auditorium (Reno, Nevada), and September 18 (2009) at the Sparks Library (Sparks, Nevada). For information call 775-345-7323.