WELCOME TO CLUB DEAD

The Pool of Bethesda

by Allan Cubitt
Directed by Rob Chambers
Common Ground

Reviewed by Marshall Yaeger


This play (the author's second, before he wrote Prime Suspect 2) compresses passion, pain, and poetry into a somewhat unwieldy package. Though rich in its inferred emotions, the production seemed curiously distanced, probably because it was written for English actors of the Helen Mirren sort, whose understatements conceal smoldering fires. These American actors' flash-pot performances seemed to be at odds with the text, especially while struggling with the syllables of love and grief in a motley chorus of British-sounding accents into which not one of them was born.

The author structures his hospital drama about a dying physician and the women who survive him - doctor, wife, and sister - in a backwards fashion. Working from the premise that tumors of the temporal lobe inspire elaborate hallucinations, he starts off his moribund hero believing himself to be the Christ in Hogarth's painting The Pool of Bethesda; then clears the character's mind in Act II to experience a painful, though cathartic reconciliation with death.

The gifted David B. Mowers as the physician trying to heal himself was a pleasure to watch as he gave his all, reacting as well as he acted, with both humor and pathos.

Sheryl Moller as the adulterous wife cynically expressed the ABC's of survival as "Anger, Bitterness, Cancer, Death." Drenda Spohnholtz (who also designed the production) played the sister who acts in commercials. And Nancy Gartlan as an oncologist displayed minimal bedside manners as she narrated the play. The three were best performing together as an occasional chorus that cavorted like witches through the hero's fantasies.

The excellent Michael Rattray was best at faking accents, playing both Hogarth and a hospital orderly poignantly attracted to the dying physician.

David Garrett in several roles was boisterous, expressive, and simple. Some smaller parts were played by Amanda Patterson, Rob McIntosh, Dominic Engel, and Liz Wessel.

Poetry needs a good director; and this play was smoothly staged without being arty.

The set's sponge-painted vignettes on walls and floor evoked Hogarth's spirit. Poetically lighted by John Tees, III, a variety of contrasts recalled Brecht's politically inspired verse about the "ones in darkness and the ones in light."

Nicely done musical interludes (composed by Mischa Kischkum) added to the sound effects. And the costumes suggestive of their periods were fine, although an angel's wings brought sniggers when the actress had some problems negotiating a too-narrow doorway.

The Biblical healing Pool of Bethesda in Jerusalem was supposed to be near a place "of five porches." This production mounted at least three of the best.


Reviewed on October 13, 1995

Copyright 1999 Marshall Yaeger

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