In this fascinating but flawed production of Kirk Wood Bromley's ambitious political thriller in verse -- a dark meditation on peacemaking in a profit-driven world -- U.N. disarmament secretary Griffin Hunter is shepherding a 90-nation treaty when he's targeted by international weapons dealers. Director Howard Thoresen ably guides a talented cast through Bromley's edgy kaleidoscope of brutality, humor, eroticism, romance, and philosophizing.
Unfortunately, Chris Thorn and Catherine McNelis are miscast as the doomed peacemaker and his famous actor wife, Sophie Berceau. Boyish and charming, Thorn seems more like a Yale grad student than an international player. McNelis embodies Sophie's fierce artistic commitment but lacks the overpowering beauty and seductiveness that ensnare international power brokers. Jessica C. Smith and Eva van Dok create realistic portraits of a conflicted theatre director and Hunter's principled assistant, but when both characters commit murder, the believability quotient plunges. Alan Benditt's sadistic arms dealer masquerading as an arts patron is on target, as are David Lamb's sinister detective, Hettienne Park's bookstore owner, and Christopher Borg's pompous diplomat. With his gap-toothed grin and pudgy boxer's face, Bob Laine expresses a stunning breadth of emotions, while lithe, reptilian, Iago-like Timothy McCown Reynolds fascinates.
Bromley's labor-intensive effort to create an epic tragedy mimicking Shakespeare's introspective soliloquies, poetic grandeur, and linguistically complex punning is admirable. But Shakespeare's works were forged in response to his time. For a serious contemporary playwright, imitating Shakespeare's style can only be an important step toward finding a voice, never a final destination. Today's theatre is undoubtedly crying out for an inspired playwright, half mad with vision, to express the beauty and misery of the world as comprehensively and eloquently as Shakespeare did. Rather than matching the Bard's style, Bromley should shoot for the higher goal: Shakespeare's role as mouthpiece of his time. He just may reach it.
Presented by Inverse Theater and the Brick
at the Brick Theater, 575 Metropolitan Ave., Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY.
Jan. 10-Feb. 3. Wed.-Sat., 8 p.m.
(646) 552-4754 or www.inversetheater.org.