Review: Travelling Light

"It's absurdly schmaltzy," laughs Paul Jesson as Maurice Montgomery, a Hollywood director assessing a story told him by young actor Nate Dershowitz that may be the truth or a potential movie scenario, in Nicholas Wright's fantastic, touching, and somewhat flawed comedy "Travelling Light," part of the National Theatre of Great Britain's ongoing series of productions broadcast to cinemas worldwide. The schmaltz quotient in Wright's sentimental plot is pretty high—but purposely so—and that's where the problem lies. Taking his cue from the interesting historical fact that almost all of the major American movie-studio heads came from within the same relatively few square miles in eastern Europe, Wright imagines a circa-1900 shtetl where the much younger Montgomery—known by his real name of Motl Mendl—and some other villagers create all the conventions of modern filmmaking.

Motl, a failed journalist, arrives at the unnamed town of his birth to clean up the affairs of his father, a pioneering photographer who has died. The young man becomes fascinated with his parent's primitive cinematograph, which can record moving images. When the boisterous timber merchant Jacob Bindel demands that Motl make a "movie" of his son, who has been conscripted into the army, an idea is born. Bindel will bankroll Motl to create films to show the villagers in an improvised theater. During the shooting of their first epic, both men fall in love with Anna, a gentile housemaid who displays an uncanny knack for film acting and editing. Along the way the first casting couch, focus group, close-up, montage, tracking shot, and dream sequence are invented. The older Montgomery narrates and in the second act encounters Dershowitz—played by the same actor who limns Motl—who may be a relative.

Wright deliberately stretches credulity for this satiric view of the early days of moviemaking. Of course, all these innovations didn't actually come about among one group of groundbreakers. The author also injects cliche movie story lines into the plot to pay tribute to the allure of cinematic storytelling. But he relies too much on the somewhat precious conceit. Bindel is too obviously a prototypical boorish producer, Motl a temperamental creative type, and Anna the passionate, ambitious starlet. Wright barely scratches the surface of the characters' Jewish identities and their ambivalent emotions toward their faith. A little more depth and a little less easy comedy would have gone a long way.

Nevertheless, Nicholas Hytner's confident direction and a solid cast create a believable community within a context of fantasy. Jesson is a powerful storyteller and commandingly embodies the mature filmmaker Montgomery, while Damien Molony boldly vivifies his cocky younger self and the equally brash thespian Dershowitz (though the British actor's Brooklyn accent could use some toning down). Lauren O'Neil captures Anna's fiery spirit and no-nonsense nature. But the spine of the play is provided by Antony Sher as the outsized Bindel. Looking slightly like a road-company Tevye, Sher radiates a magnificent life force, projecting Bindel's shrewd but unschooled wisdom and his gigantic hunger for the pleasure provided by this new art form he is helping to create.

Bob Crowley's sublime set beautifully evokes the essence of the downtrodden village and the starry dreams of its inhabitants, as does Jon Driscoll's video and projection design. The stage-on-screen format, currently in its third season, is uniquely suited for this stage play about the movies, creating a strange and entrancing hybrid of both forms.

Presented by National Theatre Live in cinemas nationwide. Screenings began Feb. 9. For a list of upcoming screenings, visit www.ntlive.com.