There have been at least five film versions of Herman Melville's novella Bartleby the Scrivener, which is surprising considering how undramatic the plot is. R.L. Lane's stage adaptation, which premiered at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in the late 1990s and is now having its American premiere, has not solved this problem. As directed by Alessandro Fabrizi, however, the production gives Gerry Bamman a bravura role as Bartleby's boss, the attorney Standard.
Melville's story is set in the 1850s world of Wall Street legal offices. When Standard is made master of chancery, the pale, ghostly Bartleby applies for a job as a scrivener (a legal copyist). Although he is strangely silent, his work is so satisfactory that he is hired on the spot. As the weeks go by, however, Bartleby becomes more peculiar and eventually, when asked to do anything, he replies, "I prefer not to." The ultimate tragedy is inherent at the outset.
As readers of Melville know, his novels are all parables -- a difficult form to dramatize. Bartleby's passive-aggressive stance is likely an early cry against mechanization and the assembly line, which were to turn so many workers into automatons. The problem with Marco Quaglia's performance as Bartleby is that he has made the character into a cipher rather than someone who is making a political statement by his inertia. Along with the fact that Lane's adaptation seems longer than Melville's original, this Bartleby becomes quite tedious.
What saves the evening is Bamman's mesmerizing performance as the narrator-boss. On stage throughout the play, Bamman runs the gamut of emotions as he attempts to save Bartleby from himself. The 19th-century atmosphere is brilliantly evoked by Harry Feiner's scenery and lighting and Dennis Ballard's witty costumes. As other members of Standard's staff, Sterling Coyne and Brian Linden offer able support.
