Shotgun Players production of Tom Stoppard's "The Coast of Utopia" Voyage"
The Shotgun Players aspiring production of Tom Stoppard’s masterwork “The Coast of Utopia: Voyage” . Is a heroically ambitious production with a large cast of 21 actors and a time sprawling epic of 11 years. This is the first stage of Shotgun’s three year trip through the trilogy. The second part will be presented in 2013 and culminating in 2014 with marathon staging of all three plays.
“Voyage” contains passages of breathtaking beauty and surprising ordinariness. At its heart it contains a fascinating lesson about the nature of drama. The play deals with 19th Century Russian revolutionaries. The first act looks like something out of a Chekov play and it reminds me of a combination of “Sea Gull” and “Three Sisters”.
The center of “Voyage” set is from 1833 to 1844 about the land wealthy, serf-holding Bakunin family which is dominated by the patriarchal Alexander (John Mercer) and his iconoclastic son Michael (Joseph Salazar) who is idolized by his four marriageable sisters. As the play starts the family is at dinner with Baron Renne, a cavalry officer engaged to the eldest daughter Liubov. The family is gathered for the arrival of Michael the pampered son returning home after five years in the Artillery School. The prodigal son tells the family he blowing off his military career with good reason since he is excited with great ideas from Schelling through Hegel in spurts of epiphanies. Michael is also is the catalyst for making his sisters dissatisfied with their suitors. All of the scenes in the first act occur at the family estate which begins in 1833 and moves forward to 1841 by end of the first act.
The first act explores the tensions present in Russia at the time and many are expressed within the personal relationships of the family. One of the most important persons is visitor Vissarion Belinsky an enthusiastic, obdurate revolutionary literary critic who wants to change Russia The current views of Russia infuriates the future radical . Act 2 takes place in Moscow and St. Petersburg and it rewinds the action back to 1833. The political desertions we heard in Act 1 we now witness for ourselves in Act 2.
“Voyage” is full of big ideas especially when Michael is imparting the likes of Fichte, Schelling, Kant and Hegel. Premukhino is a place of contemplation and abstraction as one character says it allows you “to believe in the possibility of escape, of transcendence” whereas Moscow is the reality where theory meets practice and crashes. Not much happens in “Voyage” little more than in Chekov plays. People fall tentatively and passionately in love, with one another and with theories. The characters just talk about the cultural backwardness of Russia, the shape of history, the nature of reality.
Patrick Dooley has assembled a large cast of excellent actors to portray the philosophers, revolutionaries and members of the Bakunin family. Nick Medina gives an electrifying performance as the awkward revolutionary Vissarion Belinksy especially in the first act when he dramatizes the capacity for change as the feverish radical who begins by arguing in the 1830s that Russia has no literature and ends by claiming that it carriers too many burdens in the exhilarating speech “What’s Wrong with Russia”. Patrick Jones gives a rock-solid, passionate performance as Herzen. Joseph Salazar is charismatic as the future anarchist Michael while Richard Reinholdt gives a consummate performance as Peter a philosopher and writer.
Kevin Clarke plays a triple role as Baron Renne, Polevoy and slinks around as a “ginger cat” in the second cat. He gives first rate performances in all three roles. John Mercer gives a grand performance with his very distinguish theatrical voice as the patriarchal of the Bakunin family. Zehra Berkman is wonderful as the serf-battering mother of the daughters played with charming grace by Casi Maggio, Caityln Louchard and Christy Crowley. Anne Hallinan, Britney Frazier and Alex Shafer capably represent the world of serfs and dispossessed. Yahya Abdul-Mateen II’s is excellent as the bright, idealistic Turgenev. Adrian Anchondo, Matt Lai, Sam Tillis and Ben Landmesser are effective in their small roles.
Director Patrick Dooley is given sterling support by the rich designs of Alexae Visel (costumes), Ray Oppenheimer (Lighting) and a superb set by Nina Ball. “ The Coast of Utopia: Voyage” runs through April 29 on the Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave. Berkeley. For tickets 510-841-6500 or on line at www.shotgunplayers.org