Paul Knox. Photos courtesy of Matt Kollar.
Q: What do a knighted, celebrated British playwright, an iconic classic rock record and a tiny storefront theater in Long Beach have in common?
A: Tom Stoppard’s Darkside, Incorporating Darkside of the Moon by Pink Floyd, currently enjoying its staged premiere at Long Beach’s own Garage Theatre.
How this little Long Beach company got the rights to premiere a work by one of the most important playwrights currently alive is nothing short of miraculous and shows the sort of tenacity that is more often than not The Garage’s calling card nowadays. Originally conceived and performed as a radio play for the BBC, Darkside was never really intended to be seen live, but when director Eric Hamme found a copy of it at our local Fingerprints Music, he knew he had to put it on the stage.
From left: Craig Johnson, Jeffrey Kieviet, Maribella Magana, Paul Knox, Matthew Anderson, Rob Young.
I wish I could say that Darkside as a written work or a performance is a masterpiece. I also wish I could say that this inaugural staged production will spawn millions of productions yet to come. Yet, while The Garage’s work is definitely unique and something I would recommended seeing, I don’t expect this to be the case.
From left: Craig Johnson, Jeffrey Kieviet, Maribella Magana, Paul Knox, Matthew Anderson, Rob Young.
While the script itself at times is witty, thought-provoking and stuffed full of the multitudes of ideas that one would expect from a Stoppard play, it also lacks the self-assured footing and character development of his best works. Instead, Darkside chooses to inhabit a surreal, amorphous world that ties itself together more gracefully without the tangible reality that comes from a live staged production. Even at its best, Stoppard’s radio play never really quite comes together, which, for better or worse, is part of the point it is trying to make.
Center: Maribella Magana.
The Garage’s interpenetration is full of surprises, inventiveness, original ideas and even, at times, some really beautiful moments, but it ultimately can’t find a consistent balance among the high-minded wordplay, the psychedelic structure and the oddly earnest sentiment that creeps in toward the play’s conclusion. There are riches to be had here to be sure, and at only an hour’s running time, Darkside proves far more enjoyable than laborious, yet comes close to greatness so often it’s a little frustrating that it never really makes it all the way there.
From left: Craig Johnson, Jeffrey Kieviet, Maribella Magana, Paul Knox, Matthew Anderson, Rob Young.
Plot-wise, Darkside presents itself in a series of interrelated vignettes that form a dream-like narrative. Bouncing back and forth between realities perceived, actual and somewhere-in-between, Emily McCoy fights for her sanity and the well-being of our planet through a variety of thought experiments that turn into hallucinations and vice-versa. With a structure and supporting cast of characters that vaguely resemble The Wizard of Oz (a film extrinsically tied to Darkside of the Moon for quite some time now) Darkside attempts to create a world that exists in correspondence to the classic record in the same way the record seems to correspond to the classic film. In spite of how cleverly and at times psychically the coinciding elements of Darkside sometimes align, the physical and technical demands required to make the piece reach a transcendental state seem just beyond The Garage’s means. This doesn’t mean that this is a failed experiment, just that it is perhaps more of a fascinating performance experiment than a piece of great theater.
From left: Maribella Magana, Stephen Frankenfield.
Director Eric Hamme and a talented cast of seven certainly are up to the task of adapting Darkside to the stage. Their enthusiasm, especially when amplified by Neil Corbin’s video and Christina L. Munich’s lighting design, create an immersive and sometimes hypnotic theatrical environment. What starts to bog the show down is its insistence to constantly clear the stage and reset its actors between scenes, instead of letting them remain on stage, re-arranging themselves fluidly within the nebulous world that the radio-play seemed to conjure. The cast and the director sometimes seem lost in the spaces between dialogue, not knowing quite what to do in order to keep the focus on its proper trajectory.
Likewise, in the past where I’ve often found Matari 2600’s sound design to be totally in synch with the staged proceedings, here it felt awkwardly out of its element, like someone constantly turning the music up or down instead of trying to tune its transmissions more finely towards the dialogue and the many musical interludes between it.
Jeffrey Kieviet.
Darkside is a play about compassion, the perseverance of the human condition, the paradox of ethical decisions and the possibility of a universal, transcendental consciousness. While the jury may still be out as to whether Darkside is better suited as a play for the mind or a play for the stage, I still recommend you all pay it a visit while you can.
There is no other theater company in our city taking chances that are this bold and no guarantee as to whether this odd addition to the Stoppard catalogue will ever be seen on the stage again. If it is, you will be part of the numbered few to say you saw it first.