Travels with My Aunt

By MARKLAND TAYLOR

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A Long Wharf Theater presentation of a play in two acts adapted and directed by Giles Havergal from the novel by Graham Greene. Set and costumes, Stewart Laing.
 

Praise be, Jim Dale's back where he belongs, gleefully romping through a leading role with the flair that illuminated, among others, "Scapino" and "Barnum." Add three other first-rate performances that create, under adaptor Giles Havergal's razor-sharp military direction, a seamless quartet of interdependent acting at the service of the elegant, insightful humor of Graham Green's 1969 novel, and here's a production with more than New Haven in mind.

Now to the minus side: No matter how you slice it, this is basically a staged reading of a novel. It has nowhere to go dramatically, no emotional heights or depths to climb or plumb; its theatrical temperature remains virtually the same throughout. The first act is too long by 10 or more minutes, and the production never completely answers the question of why it's being acted by four men, rather than a cast with one or more women in it (though the brilliance of the male acting and direction almost make such a question irrelevant).

The minuses explain why the final reaction to this stage version of "Travels With My Aunt" is somewhat muted. It is, however, surely far more successful than the scorned 1972 film version.

Originally created for Glasgow's Citizen's Theater, of which Havergal is director, it went on to have an award-winning 18-month West End run. This production, the U.S. premiere, is a recreation of Havergal and Jon Pope's original, right down to the setting and costumes by Stewart Laing, the Citizen's head of design. They and the production fit perfectly into the Long Wharf's intimate black-box Stage II.

The setting is mainly a curved, vivid-green, dappled wall. Brightly colored flowerpots line it, and the green of England is continued in the color of the tables and chairs that populate the stage. Overhead hang red, white and blue pennants. Changes are rung for the second act, when the locale switches to South America, by the introduction of pink wicker chairs, flower petals on the floor and multicolored streamers and lights. A running electric sign announces each scene.

The play begins with a quartet of Henry Pullings entering, all uptight in identical banker's gray suits with burgundy pullovers, short hair and neat mustaches. They sit down to sip tea and read the newspaper. Dale's Henry has the first words:"I met my Aunt Augusta for the first time in more than half a century at my mother's funeral," as he begins Greene's tale of a 55-year-old retired banker being introduced to far wider, freer horizons, to put it mildly, by the 75-year-old woman he's always believed to be his maternal aunt.

Before he knows it, he's being whisked onto the Orient Express to Istanbul and ultimately to Argentina and Paraguay, and is being investigated by the British police, Interpol and the CIA. His raunchy, free-spirited "aunt" eventually teaches him how to live, his transformation being signalled by the cast changing into white tropical suits.

The play follows Henry on his voyage of self-discovery, during which Dale is marvelous as Aunt Augusta. He's particularly wonderful at using hand movements and body language to delineate the elderly lady, particularly when, dressed soberly as a man throughout, as are all four actors, he clutches at his throat as if fondling an unseen string of pearls. He's equally effective in the shared role of timid, easily shocked Henry. It's a performance to cherish, not the least of its virtues being that it doesn't overwhelm those of the production's three other actors, each of whom has a high old time with his many roles. And somehow camp is kept at bay by all four.

A splendid, dissipated-looking Brian Murray is never funnier than when he's encompassing the character of a pot-smoking American teenage girl. Martin Rayner portrays several of Augusta's lovers, notably devoted black Wordsworth and a "Mr. Visconti" who is as illegal as most of the men Augusta admires. And Tom Beckett, in addition to slaving away as waiter and furniture mover, gets to play several corpses and, you'll believe it when you see it, a tongue-lolling Irish wolfhound.

All three men are terrific, and it's only right that they and Dale should take their curtain calls together as a team. The only pity here is that "Travels With My Aunt" isn't truly a play worthy of supporting such acting and direction.

Lighting, Mimi Jordan Sherin; production stage manager, Anne Keefe; dance sequence, Wesley Fata; casting, Pat McCorkle; scenic artist, Keith Hyatte. Artistic director, Arvin Brown; executive director, M. Edgar Rosenblum. Opened, reviewed Oct. 19, 1994, at the Long Wharf Theater/Stage II; 199 seats; $ 36 top. Running time: 2 HOURS, 35 MIN.
 

With: Jim Dale, Brian Murray, Martin Rayner, Tom Beckett.