By Tom Scanlon
Akropolis Performance Lab
Venue: The Chamber Theater
915 E. Pine Street (4th floor, old Oddfellows Building)
Capitol Hill, Seattle
(206) 934-7905
Closes Nov. 13
This is a bombastic work, an attempt to get at the soul of Dostoevsky, who spent an entire lifetime doing the same. Here, the three actors use protions of Fyodor's dialogue, with some Russian folkl songs and dance/movement.
In "Notes From Underground," Dostoevsky gave us "Undeground Man"; here, we have "Underwear Man," an actor who spends most of the play strutting about in boxers. That would be Joseph Lavy, also credited with directing the play, which sort of explains it. He spends much of the show striking various poses, some of them interesting; even when not, he has at least a tenuous grip on Dostoevsky's tone, unlike Jennifer Lavy, whose characterizations seem entirely foreign to the Russian writer's works.
And then there is Eric Mayer, and thank Fyodor there is Eric Mayer. He is so good, so natural, so comfortable-in-his-Dostoevskyness that he almost makes this sadly confused show worth the while. Mayer is a wonderful actor who does fast shifts from raging, wailing intensity to casual cruelness. His monlogue in describing the torture of an old horse is chilling, an astouding artistic flourish.
Would this have been more effective as a one-man show? Quite possibly. There is certainly something to be said for creative boldness, for artistic experimentalism . . . when it works. It often doesn't, here, and, Dostoevsky that most unpretentious of artists, deserves better.
