Theatre in Review: Light Shining in Buckinghamshire (New York Theatre Workshop)

	Mikéah Ernest Jennings, Rob Campbell. Photo: Joan Marcus

In this 1976 work, Caryl Churchill has achieved something equally notable and dubious: She has written a play that is simultaneously interesting and boring. Watching it, I felt my patience being tried, repeatedly and at length. And yet, it sometimes snapped into focus, and, several days later, I'm still thinking about it. This doesn't happen very often.

This is the second time that New York Theatre Workshop has tackled this work, and a quick summary might suggest why it may have seemed fitting for the present moment. It is a history play, focused on the rise of religious enthusiasm in seventeenth-century England, which challenged the state-approved Anglican church, kicking aside doctrine and tradition and emphasizing one's singular and highly personal experience of God. From there, it was only a few steps to the elevation of the rights of common citizens, a revolt against the throne, and civil war. Charles I was executed for high treason, followed by the off-and-on run of the republic known as the Commonwealth of England. You know how well that worked out: By 1660, Charles II was on the throne and the monarchy was solidly re-established, no doubt leaving many to wonder what all the killing had been for.

Charles II's reign, known as the Restoration, ushered in the genre of flippant, satirical sex farces that we still treasure today as Restoration comedy. Churchill, however, is a true Puritan among playwrights, serving up a hardtack form of drama that is meant to provide intellectual sustenance without the distractions of pleasure. (Or, at least, she was in 1976; the compassionate, frequently hilarious social commentary of Cloud Nine was a few years in the future. In the early seventies, Churchill, like most of the British theatre, seemed to be in thrall to Bertolt Brecht.) This is an account of revolution seen from society's bottom rung, an exploration of the effects of war and upheaval on the least of England's citizenry. Churchill traces the fates of a band of characters over the course of twenty-two scenes covering several years, but she has little interest in making them compelling as personalities; they are merely figures -- or, say, a chorus of voices -- whom she guides through a series of scenes that are more like panels of a mural than pieces of a narrative chain.

This, I think, is what causes the play's strange double effect. Churchill is interested in the small decisions that, made by the many, cause the tectonic plates of history to undergo a profound shift. Underlying the action in Light Shining in Buckinghamshire is the sense of something tremendous happening; unfortunately, it is usually unfolding somewhere else. There is much incisive writing, but, because of its austere structure and tendency to gaze at its principals from a chilly remove, the play is forced to start over with each new scene, introducing a situation only to abandon it and move on to something else. The playwright's erudition and commitment to her subject are real; the thrill of drama is absent.

There also seems to be a determined effort on the part of everyone at New York Theatre Workshop to convince audiences that the play shines a light on our contemporary political situation. Thus, the show's poster is a portrait of Charles I spray-painted with the words "resistance, revolution, revelation," and the decision was made to have the actors appear in Act II dressed in a combination of period clothing and jeans and T-shirts. But only in their broadest outlines do the civil conflicts of four centuries ago resemble those of today. Populist rage at the so-called DC swamp is barely comparable to disgust with the royal family and fears that the Anglican Church is a stalking horse for papist corruptions. The rise of a new Protestantism tried to free men of institutional control, and, as Churchill notes, ultimately led them down radical paths. Today's religionists exhort everyone to dance to their pietistic tune, and they are nothing if not explicit in their love of power. One era is apples, the other is oranges; for all its exertions, the play doesn't really cast a light on the social issues of the present day.

Still, Rachel Chavkin's production features a cast with the technical skill and sheer lung power to parse the script's long, complex speeches, giving a sense of men and women on fire with strange new ideas. The veteran performer Vinie Burrows -- how many of her colleagues can say they, too, appeared with Helen Hayes? -- lends her magnificent vocal instrument to several roles, among them an overenthusiastic churchgoer and a dryly cynical Oliver Cromwell. Rob Campbell lends his magnetic stage presence to the role of an army commander who rouses men to action, then grows more accommodating to the new holders of power. Matthew Jeffers has a trenchant bit as a vicar who only wants to get a horde of squatters off his village green. Mikéah Ernest Jennings stands out in the Putney Debates sequence, in which the future of the English republic was bitterly and closely argued. Gregg Mozgala charts the surest dramatic line of any of the characters as an early army recruit who grows bitterly disillusioned when the civil war doesn't bring social equality. Evelyn Spahr is responsible for what is arguably the production's only moment of deep feeling, as a woman compelled by poverty to abandon her infant child; she also has a sharp-edged bit as a butcher who informs a privileged customer that he has already used up his lifetime supply of meat.

The production also has clean, elegant lines, thanks to Riccardo Hernandez's spare, wood-planked set and Isabella Byrd's gorgeous use of sidelight and candlelight effects. Toni-Leslie James' costumes have a solid period authenticity. Mikaal Sulaiman's sound design makes judicious use of amplification along with such effects as cheering crowds, battles, birdsong, and hip-hop music, the last another dubious bid for contemporary relevance.

Light Shining in Buckinghamshire is, in its way, a monumental work, but not admirably so. It presents its panorama without frills or enticements. It is there to be gazed at and, perhaps, admired. But a play that deals with such tumultuous events, such matters of the soul and society, without stirring one's pulse is, in some crucial way, deficient. -- David Barbour