University of Virginia Library

STAGE

Characters Lost In Stiff History Lesson

By Steve Wells
Cavalier Daily Staff Writer

Larry Alaimo, Ellen Mease, And Arthur Greene In A Scene From The Play

There are two types of historical
plays. The first and most common
type is that which dramatizes an
episode in history for history's
sake, examples being "Elizabeth the
Queen" and "Anne of the
Thousand Days." The second - and
usually more ambitious - type is
that which uses historical characters
and situations to cast light on
moral, social, or philosophical
questions which have eternal
relevance. The prime example of
this sort of play is Robert Bolt's "A
Man For All Seasons."

Mark Pilkinton's new play,
"Charles Stuart, King," which the
Virginia Players premiered in Minor
Hall on Monday night, contents
itself with being a detailed
re-enactment of the political
struggle which created civil strife in
England in 1640, until the final
scene when the author hints at
something a bit loftier in thought
and timeless in concept. It is at this
point, in the last scene, that the
play comes to life. For the first
time, it grabs our attention. For the
first time, it doesn't bore us with
historical details, but shows us how
the characters are personally,
internally affected by the decisions
they have had to make. But, sadly,
this comes too late to save the
evening.

Historical plays have got to give
us something more than we could
learn by reading a history book.
And "Charles Stuart. King" really
doesn't. Mr. Pilkinton's play is
historically informative, and it
required a great amount of
research. Yet I am afraid that Mr.
Pilkinton did too much political
research and not enough character
research.

Hatred Of Parliaments

We learn all about Charles Stuart
the king (even though the play is
less built around Charles Stuart
than around the political situation
in England at that time), about his
hatred of Parliaments, his
restoration of order to the court,
his determination to get the funds
to support an army to fight the
invading Scots in the north, and his
reliance on the Earl of Stratford as
a political advisor. But we learn
virtually nothing about Charles
Stuart the man (or any other
character for that matter): what
type of person he is, what he enjoys
in life, his relationship with his
family - it is all ignored in favor of
squeezing in as much historical
trivia as possible.

All of the characters are
almost continuously engaged in
political debate over one thing or
another, and since we are not given
the opportunity to care about these
characters in any way (they are
such human non-entities that many
of their lines could easily be
interchanged without seeming at all
"out of character"), the whole
affair becomes deadly dull.

Thus, Mr. Pilkinton has written
a good documentary but a poor
biography. As such, it is doomed as
a stage play. The language is
beautifully handled, evoking a good
sense of period without seeming
too terribly stilted. But, here again,
it's inhibited: I kept wishing the
characters would drop their history
book facades and do or say
something human.

Director F. Roger Boyle has not
been able to do much to help
matters, though in many respects
his hands were tied by the
limitations of the play and the
Minor Hall stage. Even so, his
staging is awfully unexciting, in
many cases contributing to the
lethargic nature of the proceedings.
Characters continually just stand in
small groups and speak their lines,
with virtually no freedom of
movement. What blocking there is
seems unimaginative and restrained,
and soon becomes repetitive.

Amateurish Failing

This brings us to the
production's most irritating and
amateurish failing, namely its
stylization. How much the actors
are to blame and how much
director Boyle is to blame is
anybody's guess, but very little that
happens on stage seems natural.
Every movement, every gesture
seems mechanical, as if it had been
rehearsed and re-rehearsed until it
was just so. Most of the actors
appear to be extremely
self-conscious, as though they were
afraid of doing something that
would seem out of period. As a
result, most everything has the
appearance of being calculated, and
this pretty much destroys the
illusion of reality that everyone
involved is trying to achieve.

The actors have little to work
with and are up against a stone
wall. They make an admirable
effort to carry it off, but the script
is perhaps even more unfair to them
than it is to the audience. Larry
Alaimo, who might just be the best
student actor at the University,
plays Charles I and does a very
respectable job under the
circumstances.

But it's sad to see an actor,
especially one of Mr. Alaimo's
caliber, reaching out for something
to hang on to, searching desperately
for some hint as to what type of
man he's playing, something around
which to build a characterization,
and not being able to find it. The
fault, of course, is the author's, and
when Mr. Pilkinton finally does
bring Charles I to life in the final
scene, when the King must face the
consequences of signing the Earl of
Stratford's execution warrant, then
Mr. Alaimo rises to the occasion and
gives us a terrifying glimpse of a
man who realizes the folly of
betraying his own conscience and
convictions.

Arthur Greene is similarly
imprisoned by the role of
Stratford, and, like Mr. Alaimo, he
struggles valiantly, though not quite
as successfully. The only one who is
able to overcome the script is Ellen
Mease, who offers a very graceful
and refined interpretation of
Charles' French-Catholic wife and
queen consort. The rest of the
acting is generally deplorable, with
most of the supporting players
becoming lost in stylization.

Future in Playwriting

There are two things which I
don't want to happen as a result of
this disappointing venture. One, I
don't want Mr. Pilkinton to be
discouraged. There are too few
promising young writers in the
theatre today, and he has proven
that he has the intellect and, on the
evidence of the final scene, the
sense of theatre to have a future in
playwriting. But he has to realize
that there's more to writing a good
historical play than simply
reconstructing the basic facts.

Secondly, I don't want the
Virginia Players to shy away from
original scripts. Student playwrights
- at least those of promise - have
to be encouraged, just like all other
theatre artists. And with a little
good fortune, maybe the next time
the Players give birth to an original
script, it won't be stillborn.

—Ed.)