Mr. Lear and Dr. Freud

>> >> Skewed Shakespeare and a visit from God make for two mediocre plays

by AMY BARRATT

I've heard of obscure theatre but this is ridiculous.

The day after I saw Mr. Lear at Usine C, I received a panicked message from the publicist explaining that there had been a problem with the smoke machine which may have, shall we say, cast a pall over my enjoyment of the play.

It was apparent, even before the play began, that something was up: the theatre's fire alarm went off. We entered a hall filled with smoke. Apparently the problem referred to by the publicist was that the smoke, meant to be a brief, initial effect, instead lingered the length of the play. I didn't accept the company's offer to see the play again, being quite sure that the problems I had with it could not be solved by a little more or less brume.

Mr. Lear stars George Molnar, long associated with Carbone 14, as Lear and John Sipes, an American movement teacher, in the role of the Fool. Apart from these two, all that remains of Shakespeare's King Lear is a doll to represent the youngest daughter, Cordelia, and occasional disembodied voices for the other two sisters. The few lines of dialogue that have been salvaged are hammered home to an insulting degree. Molnar speaks mostly in what I think is a blend of his native Hungarian with words from other languages and some babytalk. (Last year, after seeing the production Uemlout, a gibberish adaptation of Hamlet, I wrote jokingly, "spare us the clown-gibberish Lear." But that's essentially what I got in Mr. Lear.)

As is so often the case when people take it upon themselves to adapt Shakespeare, I found myself wondering, Why not just do Lear? To keep the plot and remove most of the Shakespearean language demands a better explanation than, "We're movement guys." And even allowing that some of it may have been lost in the opening night fog, the movement in Mr. Lear is no great shakes. The relationship created between the two performers is that of an attendant and a patient in a nursing home. Lear has bad dreams that cause him to go thrashing about the stage and the Fool takes him in his arms and cradles him until the terror passes. Mundane.

Inoffensive visitor

Le Visiteur, which also opened last week, falls almost as far away from Mr. Lear as possible on the theatrical continuum. Although it was written in the '90s, this hypothetical meeting between Sigmund Freud and God is old-fashioned, dialogue-heavy theatre. Written by France's Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt, it is set in 1938 Vienna as the city's Jews are being rounded up and put on trains by the Gestapo. On the night that Freud's daughter Anna is taken away to be interrogated, a stranger (Emmanuel Bilodeau) appears in the aged Freud (Jean-Louis Roux)'s study. We, along with the good doctor, are kept guessing as to whether he is a madman who believes he is God or the real thing. This production is presented by Le Théatre les gens d'en bas and is unimaginatively directed by Francoise Faucher.

Although he's relatively young, playwright Schmitt is no bad boy. Despite being set amid the greatest horrors of the last century, this play manages to pull off a "the universe is unfolding as it should" message. So inoffensive it's offensive. :

Mr. Lear to Feb. 17 at Usine C, 521-4493; Le Visiteur to Feb. 10 at Salle du Gesu, 861-4036