'Shipwrecked! (An Entertainment)'
A Primary Stages presentation of a play in one act by Donald Margulies. Directed by Lisa Peterson.
Louis de
Rougemont - Michael Countryman
Player 1 - Donnetta Lavinia Grays
Player 2 - Jeremy Bobb
Every thesp of a certain age and professional stature dreams of scoring a party piece to keep him in front of an audience and tide him over through lean times. Michael Countryman, an exceptionally versatile, ever-dependable character actor who seems never to be out of work, has found himself a charming vehicle in David Margulies' "Shipwrecked!" Subtitled "An Entertainment" and purporting to be "the Amazing Adventures of Louis de Rougemont (as Told by Himself)," this slight, but nonetheless enchanting feat of old-fashioned storytelling can be staged anywhere and on a dime, with minimal props, a couple of assistants and a bit of imagination.
Margulies ("Sight Unseen," "Dinner With Friends") makes no apologies for the stripped-down nature of his new piece. On the contrary, he makes the art of bare-bones storytelling both the subject of his work and the style of its dramatic treatment. It's a story about storytelling, and what it does is tell a story.
"Hush, now," are the first words of the narrative proper, "for I am about to tell you a story -- a fantastic and amazing story!"
Well, if that doesn't grab an audience, they must be dead. And if they are initially put off by the two busy helpers (Donnetta Lavinia Grays and Jeremy Bobb) scurrying about the stage toting primitive sound-effects props, they will soon be so caught up in the story they won't even think to wonder where those bells and whistles and gongs and other atmospheric effects are coming from.
Countryman is one of those open-faced actors who, whatever role they happen to be playing, always strike you as honest. Standing quite still on Neil Patel's deceptively open set, under a strong, literally illuminating light (courtesy of Stephen Strawbridge), in respectable, but unfussy Victorian garb (designed by Michael Krass), this seemingly guileless thesp is entirely believable as Louis de Rougemont.
As described in Sarah Burton's "Imposters," from which Margulies took his raw material, de Rougemont was a Victorian fabulist who convinced the queen of England and most of her gullible subjects that he had lived a most extraordinary life. Recounting some of those amazing adventures here, he describes escaping a killer storm and a catastrophic shipwreck, diving for black pearls in the South Seas, swimming out of the clutches of a giant octopus, and living for more than a quarter century with an aboriginal tribe of cannibals.
The wonderful thing about Countryman's performance, as directed with intelligence and wit by Lisa Patterson, is that he doesn't use vocal tricks or body contortions to effect the transformations undergone by de Rougemont during the course of his picaresque adventures. Letting the story speak for itself, he draws us into the magical realm of his imagination.
To be sure, he gets outstanding support from his two helpers, who play all the other characters in his fabulous tale. Grays has an eye-popping turn as the gnarled old sea dog who steers his ship (aptly named the Wonder World) into a deadly storm, and Bobb is especially fetching as Bruno, the dog.
But the true wonder of it all is that this is accomplished without the usual theatrical artifice. There are no spectacular effects on this bare stage -- only the old-fashioned thunder sheets and eerie wind pipes to guide our imaginations. In fact, the only trickery here is the art of storytelling itself -- cruelly exposed when de Rougemont is unmasked as the fraud he is. Or is he?
Set, Neil Patel; costumes, Michael Krass; lighting, Stephen Strawbridge; original music and sound, John Gromada; production stage manager, Matthew Melchiorre. Opened Feb. 8, 2009. Reviewed Feb. 5. Running time: 1 HOUR, 30 MIN.
Contact the Variety newsroom at
news@variety.com
Date in print: Mon., Feb. 9, 2009