Archduke

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Several of Rajiv Joseph’s recent plays have dealt with historical events and characters in exotic places (Describe the Night and Guards at the Taj). Archduke, his latest play to reach New York, is farce on the subject of the men surrounding the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the throne of Austro-Hungarian Empire and his duchess in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914 which led to World War I. Unfortunately as directed by Darko Tresnjak, who ironically was born and raised in one of the Balkan settings of the story, the play is not funny, one of the key requirements of farce. Although the characters are real, Archduke plays so fast and loose with the facts that it is not much as history. More’s the pity as it has an excellent cast led by Tony Award nominees Patrick Page and Kristine Nielsen and three young actors making their Off Broadway debuts.

The would-be assassins Gavrilo Princip, Nedeljko Čabrinović and Trifko Grabež were not only friends they had also been members of Young Bosnia and the Black Hand, the Serbian secret society whose goal was to unify the Balkan states. Colonel Dragutin Dimitrijević, known as Apis (i.e The Bull) was head of the military intelligence for the Serbian Army and head of the Black Hand. At some point his path crossed with the three young men and four more and it was he who sent them to Sarajevo to assassinate the Archduke.

In the play, 19-year-old Gavrilo and 19-year-old Nedeljko are two poor starving young men in Belgrade recently diagnosed with tuberculosis. Believing they have nothing to lose they accept an invitation to meet Col. Dragutin through his henchman Trifko and are greeted with a feast which slakes their physical hunger. Confronted with their disillusioned mental state, Dragutin convinces them that their tuberculosis has been caused by the evil Austro-Hungarian government and it is their duty to kill the Archduke on his visit to Sarajevo. He is aided by his eccentric cook Sladjana who has her own axes to grind. Although the play gets the men on the train to Sarajevo, it only imagines the outcome as if it were a dream sequence but with no consequences for the young men.

The program notes suggest that the play dramatizes the pain and “lack of opportunity that brought young men like Gavrilo Princip under the influence of a radical political movement,” while most of the facts of the play are fictitious this is not really the case. In reality, the three young men of the play were well versed in politics and ready for revolutionary activities long before the Archduke visited Sarajevo.  Nevertheless, Joseph has created several pieces of business that ought to be hilarious if played differently but Tresnjak’s realistic direction does not get the laughs these absurd black comedy moments deserve. The play ought to be played as knockabout farce and then it might be much more successful.

As Dragutin, Patrick Page gives a larger than life performance but it is one we have seen from him before. Nielsen’s kooky and whimsical Sladjana is the kind of thing she is known for, but here her part is incidental to the main story. As the three illiterate young men, Jake Berne, Adrien Rolet and Jason Sanchez are convincing as peasants but their roles are simply too underwritten to give them much to do. It is almost as though the author could not find enough information about them to fill out their portraits.

The physical production is more successful than the play. In Alexander Dodge’s set design, a huge, beautifully colored map of the Austro-Hungarian Empire dwarfs the stage for a great deal of the time, though other well-appointed sets seem to be out of another play. The 1914 period costumes by Linda Cho are fine for the storyline. Matthew Richards’ lighting design varies from semi-moody to full brightness and back again for the five scenes of the play.

While there is a story in the background to the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, this play isn’t it. Making the young men caught up in the plot country bumpkins requires a much broader acting and writing style than Archduke offers. Director Darko Tresnjak has not found the right vibe in order to make this a farce or an historical recreation. Rajiv Joseph’s play suggests viewers will get something other than what he has delivered.

Archduke (through December 21, 2025)

Roundabout Theatre Company

Laura Pels Theatre at the Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre, 111 W. 46^th Street, in Manhattan

For tickets, call 212-719-1300 or visit http://www.RoundaboutTheatre.org

Running time: two hours and ten minutes including one intermission