BROADWAY SNAP-SHOT
by Russell Bouthiller

Dateline: October 18, 2001

DANCE OF DEATH

Twenty-five years is a sizable chunk of anyone’s life and may seem twice as long if it is squandered on loss, waste, venality and deception. This aptly summarizes the sentiments of Edgar, an army captain, and his wife, Alice, a one-time actress, in August Strindberg’s DANCE OF DEATH starring Sir Ian McKellen and Helen Mirren.

“I suppose you could be attractive… to others, when it suits you,” Edgar remarks to Alice, and these are some of his kinder words. Far more caustic salvos are saved up for their moment of optimum effect. Alice’s best defense is a strong offense. And, offensive she is: finding comfort in other people’s pain and delight at the prospect of her husband’s demise. Like George and Martha or Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine over a half-century later, Edgar and Alice treat their marriage as a blood-sport in which only a kill declares the winner.

Stationed on an island the Captain calls “Little Hell, ” Edgar and Alice reside in a cold and remote tower. A recent cholera epidemic has broken out, but a far more virulent miasma infects their souls. They listen with contempt to the far-off music of the local doctor’s party, a celebration to which they have not been invited. The misanthropic Edgar scoffs at this affront, calling the man a “bottom-feeder,” his favorite insult. “Everybody is a bottom-feeder.”

Edgar and Alice live in a self-imposed seclusion induced by the Captain’s antisocial bent. Indeed, Alice refers to their home as “her cell.” They communicate with the outside world by way of telegraph, eschewing the use of a telephone for fear of eavesdroppers. They’ve driven their children from the nest by their attempts to enlist them in their battles. Even their domestics abandon them. Sentenced to a frosty isolation, these two feed off each other like a pair of starved rats.

With the arrival of Alice’s cousin, Kurt, a brief pose of connubial bliss is effected, then quickly obliterated. The couple is about to celebrate their twenty-fifth anniversary and Edgar credits—or rather blames—Kurt for having brought them together. Kurt challenges this account, insisting that he had warned the Captain against the union. And, when Kurt is alone with his cousin, she describes the marriage as “an irrational hatred,” confessing that they had once separated for five years while living under the same roof.

McKellen’s presentation of a moribund Army Captain is nothing short of spectacular. A cynical, hard-drinking crank, Edgar is illustrated in textured shades and with dazzling technique. He struts and preens with the manly swagger of a Napoleon lording over his St. Helena asylum. His fitful spasm following a robust Boyar dance reads like a genuine paroxysm. But, Edgar’s autocratic temper is merely a disguise shielding him from the realization that he is nothing more than a pitiful anachronism. As his calcified shell crumbles, McKellen masterfully exposes the internal conflict of spirit at the Captain’s core.

DANCE OF DEATH marks Sir Ian McKellen’s return to the Broadhurst Theatre where twenty years ago he earned a Tony Award for his Salieri in Peter Shaffer’s AMADEUS. He was nominated for an “Oscar” for his brilliant portrayal of the director James Whale in the 1999 film GODS AND MONSTERS and should have won it. Celebrating his fortieth year in the profession, McKellen has often been dubbed the greatest living actor in the English language. His performance in this accessible adaptation by Richard Greenberg certainly ratifies this title.

Just as Alice presents an equal match to Edgar, so too does Helen Mirren measure up as McKellen’s distinguished peer. Her Alice grows like a poisonous mushroom in the garden of her husband’s decline. The mirthful revelry she displays in such lines as “Is he dead?” and “It is exalting to see evil punished” send chills up your spine. Gleaming at the prospect of returning to the stage, Alice openly seduces her cousin Kurt, and Mirren plays it with stinging results. Undoubtedly, this is a character who lends credence to the notion that Strindberg was an intractable misogynist.

Under the direction of Sean Mathias, whose Broadway credits include MARLENE and Cocteau’s INDISCRETIONS, Strindberg’s DANCE OF DEATH has been choreographed with masterful finesse. David Strathairn presents a tamped-down read on Kurt, an ideal foil for Mirren and McKellen’s fireworks. Santo Loquasto’s daunting set and stunning costume designs create a surreal tableau, evocatively bathed in Natasha Katz’s lighting. DANCE OF DEATH is a first-rate turn at Strindberg’s danse macabre.