Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – A delicious cast sparkles in a timely revival of Shaw’s HEARTBREAK HOUSE

• By drediman
• September 14, 2018
• No Comments

The company of George Bernard Shaw’s “Heartbreak House” presented by the Gingold Theatrical Group at the Lion Theatre at Theatre Row. Photo by Carol Rosegg.

This week, I caught the Gingold Theatrical Group’s spunky, high concept Off-Broadway revival of George Bernard Shaw’s Heartbreak House at the Lion Theatre at Theatre Row, featuring an enticing cast with some serious New York theater credentials. The production is a timely one – Shaw’s satiric play remains as biting as ever as it depicts the absurdity of the lives of a group of acquaintances in an English manor as the country approaches headlong into World War I. For me, the play is most striking as an allegory for the existentialism inherent in humanity as it accelerates blindly towards the edge of a cliff or some sort of abyss.

Conceptually, director David Staller has fascinatingly taken one of Hermione Gingold’s real life experiences and overlaid it onto Shaw’s play. During the Blitz in London during World War II, Ms. Gingold experienced a performance of Heartbreak House in a bunker-like basement of a West End theatre. It’s an ambitious decision that doesn’t always work. Although the idea adds a bit of urgency to the play’s final scene, I don’t think it added much furthermore to the piece, aside from an element of aforementioned historical curiosity. I also largely missed the work’s original setting, particularly the remote, out-of-touch environment afforded having an actual country house onstage (nevertheless, the company is handsomely costumed by Barbara A. Bell).

As for the accomplished cast, they sparkled as I hoped they would. Shaw, more than most playwrights, requires actors appearing in his plays to operate on two levels. On one hand, they must play their characters with their own presence and internal drive. But on the other hand, they must also be attuned to the playwright’s larger philosophical arguments. Attempting to attain and managing this balance sometimes drains productions of Shaw plays of dramatic fire, at times making them a chore to sit through. Luckily the cast, deliciously starring Broadway stalwarts like Tom Hewitt, Alison Fraser, and Karen Ziemba, are skilled and experienced enough to pull off the play delightfully and with effortless verve, individually and selflessly as part of the ensemble.

RECOMMENDED

HEARTBREAK HOUSE
Off-Broadway, Play
Gingold Theatrical Group at the Lion Theatre at Theatre Row
2 hours, 40 minutes (with one intermission)
Through September 29