"OCEAN SEA" at National Pastime Theatre
BY LUCIA MAURO
This past summer, I read Alessandro Baricco’s transcendent novel-fable, "Ocean Sea," along the shores of Lake Michigan so that I could actually hear, taste, smell and feel the hypnotic allure of a body of water against his fluid words. This 1993 Italian book is written in a softly fantastical style – as if the author gathered all the mysteries of the sea in an inkwell and then spilled them artfully onto the page (not unlike one of the main character Plasson’s longing to paint the sea using only sea water).
The book – set at the Brigadoon-like Almayer Inn run by angelic-impish children near an unnamed ocean -- has an ephemeral quality and, regardless of its earthy insights into human virtue and vice, exists in the realm of breathless absurdity. A group of eclectic and unfulfilled characters gather here to seek solace or love or revenge.
But a piece that embraces the imagination almost exclusively through metaphor can pose a challenge for any theatre adapting its vague idiosyncrasies for the stage. Clock Productions, the Moving Dock Theatre Company and the newly formed International Theater of Chicago bravely embarked on this daunting performance voyage, receiving its American premiere at National Pastime Theatre. Co-adapters/co-directors Patrizia Acerra and Dawn Arnold have done an admirable job of harnessing Baricco’s elusive text while allowing it to mysteriously breathe.
Yet the production still has the feel of an unwieldy lump of clay in need of smoother shaping and refining. Its close to three-hour running time also can wear on one’s tolerance for abstract pondering, especially for audiences unfamiliar with Baricco’s suggestive and poetic text. Since all the characters were fresh in my mind, I could piece together this enchanting dream of a story throughout the more belabored first act – although I also tried to imagine what it would be like to first experience Baricco’s work on stage without the aid of his book. And I concluded that confusion would ensue during the entire first act, then begin to settle into a more fluid understanding of the characters’ relationships by the tighter second half.
"Ocean Sea" consists of a cast of mesmerizing characters, all temporary residents of a mystical inn. They are: Plasson, a former portrait-painter searching for the "eyes of the sea" in his most literal of watercolors; bungling scholar Bartleboom intent on writing a limitless book about limits (for e.g., he’s trying to figure out where the sea ends), while penning love letters to the woman he has yet to meet; the mentally fragile young girl Elisewin, plagued by "an uncontrollable sensitivity of spirit"; and her priest-guardian, the semi-blasphemous Father Pluche (engaged in writing a tome on prayers for every imaginable occasion); the alluring Ann Deveria, a middle-aged adulteress whose husband thinks the sea air will quell her flaming passion; and the scruffy, taciturn former sailor Thomas searching for the ruthless doctor (André Savigny) who murdered Thomas’ lover during a savage sea atrocity.
In the book, Baricco places ethereal creatures throughout the hotel. They are all children with different functions – like Dira, the astute check-in clerk; Dood, a silent boy perched on a window ledge; Ditz, who can give mortals the gift of dreams as they sleep; Dol, who accompanies Plasson to the sea for his painting excursions; and a beautiful little girl who sleeps in bed with Ann Deveria. Acerra and Arnold have consolidated the children into a chorus, which provides a solid narrative through-line. Other characters, like Elisewin’s skeptical father the Baron and the pivotal Man in the Seventh Room, are not physically in this production. I particularly missed the latter character, since he carries the book to its magical-realist conclusion.
Perhaps had the adapters shortened the repetitive Savigny drama at sea or Bartleboom’s maddening case of mistaken identity involving twin sisters and his box of letters, the unnamed Man could have been woven in. I also understand how difficult it must be to try to encapsulate the essence of an intensely symbolic, non-linear book within a dramatic setting. Arnold emphasizes stylized movement, a technique that allows the artists to propel their emotions through their every fiber. It also becomes slightly grating – especially the play’s opening melodramatic contortions.
The actors are obviously willing to take risks and revel in the work’s unpredictability. Some of the most inspiring moments are those rife with delicate details – like when Bartleboom traces the words of his letter with the smoke from his candle; or Elisewin flitting about with her dainty lace parasol and gloves and tiny gold-painted chair.
But not all the artists have comfortably settled into their metaphoric characters. Only Tiffany Liveris’ pitch-perfect Elisewin (a woman of immense delicacy and strength) and Christopher Ellis’ squinting-curmudgeonly Plasson (a man who hides his acute sensitivity beneath an embittered self-flagellation) fully invest in their roles.
Arnold’s tortured Ann Deveria, while stunning, tends to get locked into the dramatic prison of a tragic opera figure. Christopher Kuckenbaker’s Bartleboom is charming but too stilted and presentational. Arthur Simone as Thomas opts for an overly brooding portrayal, and Michael Denini’s Savigny has not quite captured the brutal doctor’s self-doubting dimensions. Paul Condylis is physically suited to the wise and winking Father Pluche, but he is not yet secure with his lines. Most of the actors playing the children toggle between innocence and cosmic impetuosity.
The production is ideally matched to the worn National Pastime space – even its vintage marble water fountain has been incorporated into Bartleboom’s room. David Denman’s gracious scenic design, Maria Fischinger’s costumes and Kourtney Vahle’s otherworldly waltz-like sound design create the intriguing feel of a vaguely turn-of-the-20th-century spa in Europe – further abstracted by Denman’s seamless video projections of the sea.
Baricco’s novel is one of the most enlightening works I’ve found myself absorbed in. It speaks concisely and eloquently about the vagaries of science, faith, love, vengeance, forgiveness and becoming whole again after the onset of a soul-erasing malaise. It just may be possible that such revelatory moments of the heart cannot be contained within this dramatized version.
And then we have the sea itself. There’s something very comforting and haunting about the sea – it carries us back to the life-giving amniotic fluid of the womb and propels us into the possibility of a suffocating death. The play just might have the greatest impact performed along the shores of the all-knowing sea itself.•
"Ocean Sea" runs through December 22 at National Pastime Theatre, 4139 N. Broadway. Tickets: $18. Call 773-347-1055.
