Alexander Alioto as Judge Brack, Josh Barrett as George Tesman and
Michael Crane as Eilert Lovborg in a scene from Brack’s Last Bachelor Party
(Photo credit: Carol Rosegg)
A novel premise that appears to be breathtakingly original can either turn out to be brilliant theater or a disappointing mistake. Sam Marks’ Brack’s Last Bachelor Party contains a seemingly brilliant idea. In Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler, we hear about the bachelor party that Judge Brack, a family friend of the recently married George Tesman, and the former Hedda Gabler, throws to honor the bridegroom just returning home from his five-month honeymoon on the continent. However, the party takes place between Acts 2 and 3 and remains an offstage event in Ibsen’s drama.
Playwright Marks has now rectified this omission. Unfortunately, Marks’ play does not have enough stuffing to even fill out the 80 minute running time, and also makes an unsuccessful attempt to connect this 1890 drama with the present. Geordie Broadwater’s production for Babel Theatre Project contains amateurish and unconvincing acting from performers portraying characters who are supposed to be men of substance in their community.
The play takes place in the parlor of Judge Brack in a university town in Norway. Although a raucous party is supposed to be taking place in the next room, we are initially only introduced to stuffy, academic Dr. Tesman (Josh Barrett), the person for whom the party is being given, and formerly high-living Eilert Lovborg (Michael Crane), an ex-suitor of Hedda Gabler and a reformed alcoholic. When the curtain rises, Lovborg, who has just published a best-selling book on the social forces involved in civilization, has brought the manuscript of his new book to the party and has been reading it to Tesman who is in the same academic field.
The new work is a continuation of the published book and contains Lovborg’s grim vision of the future. Tesman is contemptuous of Lovborg’s theories and as the men argue. Lovborg, who has been on the wagon for some time, begins to drink more and more. Attempting to connect Lovborg’s theories with our present, Marks has a woman from our time enter, and the playing space alternates between Brock’s parlor and Emma’s basement apartment. When Brock enters, his only purpose seems to be to get Tesman to come out of the parlor and join the other men at the party in his honor. His later entrances bring temptations as he has hired female entertainers who double as prostitutes.
All of this would have been fine, but Marks’ dialogue for Lovborg and Tesman revolves exclusively around two items: Lovborg’s view that the future will be degraded and depraved and Tesman’s low self-image and his fears that Hedda who is socially above despises him. Tesman also believes that Hedda is pregnant and is unsure that he is ready for fatherhood. Nothing new is presented and the two men go around and around mainly repeating the same topics again and again. The Emma story which remains mostly undeveloped adds little or nothing to the discussion. Emma may be a single parent with a child but as written she is not a valid representation of Lovborg’s theories.
The play also has some inconsistencies. In Ibsen’s play, Tesman tells his wife when he returns home that Lovborg dropped his manuscript in the road after the party. In Marks’ play, Tesman says he took it home from the party in order to safeguard it. Not all of the language is convincingly 19th century. For example, the use of the word “disrespect” as a verb is decidedly a modern usage. Lovborg tells an embarrassing story from back in their school days when Tesman refused to take off his shirt during sports because he didn’t wish to reveal his humiliatingly undeveloped chest. In the scene as directed by Broadwater in which Lovborg takes off most of his clothing after becoming inebriated, the actor is put in the position of the pot calling the kettle black. Some covering lines could have dealt with this obvious error.
Had the acting been persuasive and passionate, the play’s deficiencies might have been less glaring. All of the actors are too young for their roles (despite beards) and their lack of technique and authority is telling. In Ibsen’s play, Tesman is pedantic and measured, obtuse and unsophisticated. Not only is he up for a promotion as full professor, he fears that Lovborg with his new publishing success will run against him. In Act I he has been impressed with the success of Lovborg’s new book which he has just been informed about on his return from his honeymoon. Here Barrett’s Tesman is belittling and fatuous. Never is he measured or pedantic, nor does he stand in awe of Lovborg, whom Ibsen implies is the brightest of their generation. Neither Barrett nor Crane suggests college men, rather interns or fraternity brothers.
As Lovborg, Crane has a drunken scene in which he becomes sick. During this scene he explicates his theories so clearly that he could not be as drunk as all that. Alioto’s Judge Brock lacks the authority of age which would explain why the other men continually defer to him. He seems to be far too young to be such a corrupting influence. Aside from the underwritten role of Emma, Crystal Finn makes one brief appearance as Hedda in a total misreading of her character when Tesman returns home. Although Tristan Jeffers’ setting and Becky Lasky’s costume designs are acceptable, Anthony Gabriele’s sound design which never suggests a raucous party in the next room is not.
Give playwright Sam Marks credit for a great premise in Brack’s Last Bachelor Party. Give him and director Geordie Broadwater demerits for not being able to bring it off. Don’t blame the actors who are too young to believably play these mature men or for their flat characterizations due to the faults of the writing.
Brack’s Last Bachelor Party (through March 14)
Babel Theatre Project at 59E59 Theaters, 59 E. 59th Street, in Manhattan
For tickets, call 212-279-4200 or http://www.ticketcentral.com