Changes of Heart
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Cast: Kathryne Dora Brown (Sylvia), Laurence O'Dwyer (Trivelin), Paul Anthony Stewart (Prince), Mary Lou Rosato (Flaminia), Maria Canals (Lisette), John Michael Higgins (Harlequin), John Rafter Lee (Lord); Lira Angel, Ginta Rae, Gibson Frazier, Larry Paulsen. The difficulty of knowing our own hearts has perhaps never been as elegantly -- or comically -- analyzed as it is in "Changes of Heart," Stephen Wadsworth's supremely stylish adaptation of Marivaux's "The Double Inconstancy." Matching a bold modern translation to a musical sense of rhythm, Wadsworth, who also directed -- he's a veritable one-man Marivaux band -- brings a literary rarity to potent life.
The object of the Prince's undying amour is Sylvia (Kathryne Dora Brown), whose heart is, alas, violently attached to Harlequin (John Michael Higgins). A sort of Shakespearean fool on speed, in Wadsworth's free and freewheeling translation, and played with spectacular vocal and physical elasticity by Higgins, Harlequin professes himself just as staunchly in love with Sylvia -- until the Prince's aide-de-camp, Flaminia (Mary Lou Rosato), begins manipulating matters.
TX:Center Theatre Group/Mark Taper Forum presents a play in three acts (two intermissions) by Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux, translated, adapted and directed by Stephen Wadsworth. Playing on Sylvia's vanity and Harlequin's good spirits, Flaminia lays her plans, but she's too clever to keep the lovers apart -- she seeks to separate them by throwing them together. In the exquisitely ironic last moments of act one, Sylvia and Harlequin fall into each other's arms, fervently declaring their love in such elaborate detail that it begins to seem absurd.
The lovers continue to protest their devotion to each other even as circumstances bring Sylvia closer to the Prince and Harlequin into a comic infatuation with Flaminia herself, and in all their tortured avowals of loyalty we begin to see Marivaux's cruelly apt point -- if we try to examine our hearts and our emotions too closely, we may yield not a deeper knowledge but utter confusion.
Under the grand gold proscenium of Thomas P. Lynch's simple period set, Wadsworth gives the actors a fair amount of freedom with all this emotional filigree. Rosato as Flaminia and Higgins fare brilliantly -- she moving from scheming to bewitched with comic grace, he pulling off the play's broadest strokes with goofy charm, and barely a hint of vulgarity.
Unfortunately, the other lovers are also well-matched in at least one respect -- neither is quite up to the part. Brown is magnificently lovely -- appropriately so as the romantic cynosure of the play -- but her acting technique is underdeveloped; she opens the play on a strident note, stomping about declaiming in a near shout, and too often lacks crucial nuance (though she fares distinctly better in introspective moments, and does nicely by the tremulous emotion at the close of act two). Stewart, who has the least interesting of the four leads, doesn't make up for his handicap, giving an unsophisticated performance.
In the smaller part of the lackey Trivelin, however, Laurence O'Dwyer is a treasure, natural in the silliest of comedy, and well near heartbreaking in a single moment of drama.
Another director -- one who wasn't also the translator and adaptor, say -- might choose to trim some dialogue; there are patches that seem repetitive, and some speeches lampooning court behavior don't have quite the zip they must have had in the 18th century. At just under three hours, this souffle is in danger of caving in, which would be a shame, because its message about the mutability of our hearts' desires is still fresh.
Set, Thomas P. Lynch; costumes, Martin Pakledinaz; lighting, Michael Philippi; sound, Jon Gottlieb; casting, Stanley Soble; production stage manager, Mary K. Klinger; stage manager, James T. McDermott. Opened July 25, 1996; reviewed July 24; runs through Sept. 1. Running time: 2 hours, 45 min.
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