Aamused in Austin, TX

In honor of the fiery classical tradition on which Berkeley Rep was founded, Les Waters stages Heartbreak House for our 40th birthday. In this comedic masterpiece, ridiculous aristocrats, eccentric suitors and iconoclastic women grapple with unlikely romance and ironic wordplay in a world on the brink of war. Shaw’s incisive wit and intellectual pyrotechnics light up the stage as his irascible characters challenge social conventions, sexual mores, moral hypocrisy and political folly. As with The Glass Menagerie, Waters’ sure touch on a classic text makes the script seem newly inked.

http://www.berkeleyrep.org/season/0708/1985.asp

Alas, if only the above was entirely true. I admit, I'm rather proud of our little local Repertory Theater. I've seen some really well done plays there. Last night I sat down with moderate expectations. The curtain rose on a perfectly stunning set. Little did I realize in those first few moments that the set was the best part of the performance. Actors flubbed a half dozen lines in the first ten minutes of the play. No character was immune, it seemed, from error. It made nerves taunt and so the tension, timing and delivery seemed way off in the first act. There was a 15 minute intermission between the first and second act. The play was to be just under two hours in length. When the curtain rose again things were much improved and the play, before the set change to the veranda, was the best part of the performance by this particular group of actors. Alas, once the play moves to the veranda so did the energy of the performers, it seems, and what should have been the great moral, apocalyptic ending of biting social satire merely slithered to a halt and looked around waiting.

There was acceptable and polite applause by the nearly full house and no curtain calls. No cheers or excessive enthusiasm from the audience whatsoever. I glanced at my iPhone for the time; it was 11:03pm. 2 hours and 45 minutes that seemed at times like the 90 years which have transpired between the play and now.

Shaw. Call me silly, but I have always like Shaw. I liked his essays as much as his plays. This play has wit, has twists, has bare-faced condemnation of the idle rich and pseudo-rich--the "leisure class" of early 20th century England and their studied ignorance and disaffection with 'worldly affairs' even when it intrudes upon their well trimmed gardens and weekend house parties. The host couple Hesione and Hector Hushabye smack of Virginia and Leonard Wolf. I told the Engima last night "Shaw does not paint your countrymen and their focus on the vanity and veneer of class, social standing, and unrealistic values in a good light." He bristled slightly at that until I added that the leisure class of the United States at the time was no better.

That said the play, which was not published until 1919, a year after "The Great War" ended, was received in the US with far more enthusiasm than it was in post-war Britain. Watching the play last night I was a bit sad that Shaw's satire did not seem to have aged well. That said it was apparent to me, as I sat there, the superficiality that sent over one million of Britain's young men to their deaths on the fields of Flanders.

I spent over three years studying this era in our history with great attention because I had a great fascination with the force of change in society and in literature that happened between the two world wars. So before I went to see Heartbreak House last night I was already familiar with the time, the mores, the prevailing attitudes, the class system and the like. I sat there at intermission feeling very irritated with myself for having wandered off and left my studies unfinished.

Still, that was a very different irritation then sitting through the first act wishing I could just go home and read the play myself. The actors were getting in the way of Shaw. All in all, last night was a disappointing run. I sure hope the 40th Anniversary Season improves from here.