Theatre in Review: A Minister's Wife (Lincoln Center Theatre/Mitzi E. Newhouse Theatre)

I hate to have to point out the obvious, but not every play must be made into a musical. This goes double for the plays of George Bernard Shaw. Consider the case of A Minister's Wife, adapted from Shaw's Candida, and, even at only 95 minutes, an uncommonly tedious experience.

A cannily plotted drawing room comedy, Candida centers on a romantic triangle, but, this being a work of Shaw's, it keeps its head about it at all times. It is; its passions are reserved for elegant arguments rather than fervent embraces. The intrigue unfolds in the drawing-room-cum-office of the Reverend James Morell, a popular preacher, whose life's work is the establishment of a permanent link between Christianity and socialism. His witty and highly capable wife, Candida, supports him in a thousand ways, allowing him to focus entirely on his work. Their earthly paradise is threatened by Eugene Marchbanks, a young, impecunious poet who has been cast off by his aristocratic family. Candida keeps Eugene as a kind of privileged house pet, fully aware that he is in love with her. Then Eugene privately lashes out at Morell, all but convincing him that his marriage is a sham -- and the race is on, with each man desperate to claim Candida for himself. When Candida discovers what is going on, she makes her own choice, leaving both men stunned at the force of her logic.

No purveyor of romantic fiction, Shaw wrote Candida to express his ideas about modern marriage and the role of the artist vis-á-vis the social reformer, and the author's deliberately cerebral approach proves stubbornly resistant to being musicalized. I can see some of you waving copies of My Fair Lady's original cast album, but that brilliant achievement only proves the point. Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe took Pygmalion, a similarly clever, if emotionally arid, comedy and opened it up, adding color and variety. They deepened the script's comedy and contributed an emotional tension that is entirely missing from the original. A brilliant sketch was transformed into an alluring oil painting, full of new tints and textures.

< In the case of A Minister's Wife, everyone involved has simplified and diluted the original, apparently in the name of getting at some kind of emotional truth; all they've done is rob it of impact. Austin Pendleton's libretto concentrates the action, removing most of the comedy in the process. In Shaw, the idea of Eugene challenging Morell seems comically absurd, only gradually becoming more credible until Morell becomes legitimately fearful for his marriage; here, the two men go from friends to enemies in about a minute and a half. The elimination of Mr. Burgess, Candida's reprobate of a father, further kills off any laughter and softens the sociopolitical aspects of the story. (Burgess made his money running sweatshops, making him Morell's natural adversary.) Without Burgess, parts of the action don't even make sense. In the original, he takes Morell's two assistants, Alexander Mill and Prosperine "Prossy" Garnett, out to dinner and gets them drunk on champagne. Here they have to do it themselves, a rather odd activity for a curate and an old maid. A Minister's Wife becomes, the more banal it seems. The music, by Joshua Schmidt, and lyrics, by Jan Levy Tranen, strike a single melancholy note throughout. For that matter, Shaw's words are far more musical -- conveying even within their limited range a much broader array of feelings and ideas -- than anything in the score. The Morell household is supposed to be full of wit and activity, but, as portrayed, they're full of the mopes.

Michael Halberstam's direction does little to alleviate this situation. He has a few amusing ideas -- there's a lovely moment when Candida leaves the room and Morell, Eugene, and Alexander all look after her longingly, thoroughly upsetting Prossy, but such inventions are few and far between. Halberstam also conceived the production, so presumably he's on board with the way the libretto forgoes the original's subtle transitions and understated wit. Worst of all, he doesn't entertain the idea that Candida just might be in love with Eugene, thus eliminating a main source of suspense.

At least he has found a lovely Candida in Kate Fry, who attacks the role with considerable charm and a clarifying, common-sense attitude that makes clear why she's so popular with the men in her house. Less successful are Mark Kudisch and Bobby Steggart, as Morell and Eugene. Lacking any feeling for the Victorian period, both offer solemnly melodramatic performances, full of clenched jaws and sweeping gestures -- the sort of thing that made Shaw snort with laughter.

The production is reasonably handsome, although Allen Moyersetting, for all its fine period detail, feels a little claustrophobic. (There is no window on the upstage wall, probably because the orchestra is located behind it.) Keith Parham's lighting is fairly adept at suggesting different times of day. David Zinn's costumes are fine period pieces, and we get a clear sense of contrast between Candida and Prossy; he's also good at dressing Eugene in a way that instantly suggests genteel poverty. Scott Stauffer's sound system preserves an ideal balance between voices and orchestra.

However, nobody involved in this enterprise has been able to make a case for a musical Candida. Next to the robust writing of Shaw's original - seen only last season in an excellent revival at the Irish Rep -- A Minister's Wife is a serving of very weak tea.--David Barbour