Theatre in Review: Socrates (Public Theater)

	The company of Socrates. Photo: Joan Marcus

Socrates is a monumental effort, an incisive portrait of a foundational thinker of Western civilization set against a background of Classical Athens teeming with intellectual ferment, which also serves as a mordant, even savage, comment on the fallen state of our democracy. Centered on a character whose mind is on fire, it focuses on the sheer, destabilizing power of ideas and the terrible consequences that can follow when a single intelligent person plausibly challenges the status quo. Alternating slyly constructed arguments with scorching confrontations and climaxing with a harrowing death scene, it is, arguably, one of the most ambitious offerings of the season; it is also, at times, lumbering, drunk with the power of its own words, and willing to follow unprofitable tangents as far as they will lead. Then again, in the title role, Michael Stuhlbarg gives a titanic performance that crowns his career to date. It's a tough piece, one that demands you wrestle with it, but it's also the kind of play that reminds one why the Public Theater is a such a necessary component of New York life.

Tim Blake Nelson's script exhaustively establishes the title character as a celebrity among the social and intellectual elites of Athens, even if he does stand in opposition -- however jovially -- to the homoerotic, intergenerational male relationships that were a feature of the era. "A corpulent Medusa," in the words of Alcibiades, his longtime friend, follower, and verbal sparring partner, he is indeed no Adonis -- he is plump, raggedly dressed, and equipped with an undisciplined beard that seems to extend his face by several leagues -- but, wandering the streets of the city, engaging in conversations with those from all walks of life, he earns a passionate youthful following. "You've taught an entire generation how to think," says Alcibiades, a former acolyte; it's a tribute that Socrates strenuously denies. All he does, he insists, is ask questions. Yes, but what questions! In his seemingly mild, but probing, way, his many lines of inquiry nip away about the foundations of society, particularly the myths, both religious and civic, that act as a unifying force. In Nelson's view, Socrates is blind -- indifferent, really -- to their side effects.

For example, Socrates is blamed when a gang of rowdy youths, led by Alcibiades, roam the city, destroying statues of Hermes, who is popular with everyday folk. "An act of aristocratic derision, plain and simple," says Plato, another follower but also a dry-eyed realist, who acts as a kind of narrator. "'Elitist,' it was called, which it was. A thumb in the eye of the people." Alcibiades and his friends also commit blasphemy against religious rites centered on the goddess Demeter. "A sacrilege beyond imagining in a city mad about its gods," Plato adds. "They might as well have destroyed the Parthenon for all the hysteria that followed."

And, as Plato shrewdly notes, "Something far more dangerous lay behind this sacrilege. Hatred for the democracy, its customs, and all they stood for." The structure of life in the city-state threatens to come apart, and, in such moments of anxiety, it is usually the intellectuals who are blamed. And, indeed, Socrates is suspicious of democracy, fearing that it relies too much on the dimmest elements of society, raising the ever-present threat of mob rule. Consider the following exchanges and how they echo down the years to this day. Socrates, noting to an antagonist that in all other cases of one's life, one would consult a professional, says, "I'm simply curious why do we not do the same when it comes to Athens, and let those best fit to lead, lead, rather than the ones who give the most entertaining speeches, largely to the uninformed, or even worse, are chosen by lottery rather than because they're qualified?"

Anytus: The lottery is a foundation of our Democracy.

Socrates: Does that make it best?

Anytus: It most certainly does.

Socrates: Why? Because you've hauled in the sacred word "democracy" in defense of it, a word by the way that anyone can use, and I'm meant to cower?

For words like these, a man could earn a cup of hemlock. Of course, Athenian democracy hardly meets the twenty-first-century ideal -- whole sections of society, including women and slaves, were disenfranchised -- and Socrates' queries end up casting a light on class divisions and questions of identity. "The divide widened between those who loathed and those who admired him, with no one in between," Plato says. "The latter mostly the young, of course, and the former their parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles." In what may be the greatest indignity ever applied to such a rigorous logician, he is eventually arraigned for crimes that, given a moment's thought, cancel each other out: "Think of it," Plato says, "Charged for being an atheist, but also for worshipping the wrong gods...By the simplest logic, the two charges cannot coexist, but there they were, and listed consecutively to make it even more maliciously incoherent." For good measure, Socrates is accused of corrupting the youth of Athens -- he who, we learn in the opening scene, assiduously refused the advances of the youth Alcibiades. As Plato coolly notes, this is a case of "democracy with a vengeance" in which "the many brutalize the one, the law itself making it so."

Admittedly, this is a startling argument coming from a production at the Public, an institution that bills itself as "theater of, by, and for all people." But if you are reading this, you are one click away from any number of online publications filled with evidence of what happens when the popular will is pandered to, shamelessly and for personal profit. Socrates is a lucid examination of one fearless thinker's path to doom at the hands of his fellow citizens; it also holds up an uncanny mirror to a society made coarse and vengeful by self-serving leaders and the shameless manipulation of identity politics.

For all its audacity, however, the power of Socrates is vitiated by its unruly length and sheer love of discussion. The lengthy first scene, in which Alcibiades recounts his long-fruitless pursuit of Socrates to a rowdily amused audience, could be drastically cut; it goes on so long that one fears that any hint of conflict is being permanently delayed. There are too many scenes of Socrates engaged in his classic questioning, not all of them equally compelling. And the climactic execution scene, in which various characters try to talk Socrates out of taking the fatal cup, is too much, too late, even if the scene contains some splendid things. This is a play of extraordinary richness of thought -- which, nevertheless, would benefit from a certain amount of streamlining.

Then again, such objections vanish into the ether whenever Stuhlbarg is at work -- sneakily piling question upon question until his interlocutor's assertions collapse in a heap, smothered by skepticism -- roaring his disapproval of those who would silence him, or stoically facing the end, almost serenely aware that his refusal to make political concessions has brought him to this bleak place. ("He had every opportunity not to die," Plato laments.) His handling of the speech that closes Act I, featuring Socrates furiously defending his right to pursue questions of virtue and vice, rattles the house with more force than the subway trains that periodically rumble under the Public. It's an enormous role, a portrait of a man intoxicated by thought and contemptuous of those who would bring him down, and Stuhlbarg makes every syllable resonate with meaning. It is an astonishing performance, among the two or three best the season has offered us.

In a large supporting cast, the standouts include Teagle F. Bougere as Plato, who loves Socrates with a certain detachment and who arguably hastens his demise by writing down his ideas; Robert Joy as Socrates' staunch friend, Crito; Miriam A. Hyman as Xanthippe, Socrates' wife, who in blistering terms reminds him that in dying for the right to think he is leaving behind a needy family; Austin Smith, smoothly assured and well-spoken as Alcibiades; and Niall Cunningham as a young student assigned to Plato who, even if remains unnamed, will mature into a philosopher of equal, if not greater, consequence. Doug Hughes' handling of the cast is on his usual high level, but he has allowed the set designer, Scott Pask, to encase Martinson Hall in dark stone walls on which are engraved actual Socratic writings. The overall effect is claustrophobic, as if we are joining Socrates in his tomb, and it tends to suck up much of Tyler Micoleau's lighting design, leaving much of the action in half-darkness. It's a strangely oppressive design for a story about one of the most agile minds of his time. Catherine Zuber's costumes have a solid period feel and Mark Bennett's sound design supports his insistent, often melancholy, original music.

Whatever its excesses, however, Socrates is a rich banquet of ideas that force us to consider a crucial question of our time: Can democracy function if its citizens can't or won't do the hard work of thinking about good and evil? As Socrates says, "Is this not Athens, where I may speak and question as I choose?" And, as Plato notes, "He exposed us to our lies, and we killed him for it." If that's not a modern-day dilemma, I don't know what is. -- David Barbour