Theatre in Review: Posterity (Atlantic Theater)

	Hamish Llinklaeter, John Noble. Photo: Doug Hamilton

Is an artist's career, no matter how celebrated, necessarily built on sand? In a life devoted to the creation of art, does the verdict of history matter? These are the questions nagging at the characters in Posterity. Playwright Doug Wright pits a canonical playwright against a struggling sculptor in an intellectual boxing match with no winner but plenty of collateral damage. No conclusions are reached, but the dialogue crackles anyway in this striking, often witty, historical drama.

Hamish Linklater stars as Gustav Vigeland, whose ambition and all-consuming devotion to his sculpture have brought him to the edge of ruin. Having studied with Rodin, he dreams of creating a monumental public fountain featuring enormous figures arrayed in a variety of provocative positions. His reality is much sadder, even sordid, however: As he admits, "I am a few kroner away from bankruptcy," adding, "I have had to boil my art books in order to eat their flour paste." His wife has abandoned him -- a drastic act for 1901 -- taking their children with her. One reason for his penury is that he is fed up with doing busts on commission; he considers such work trivial, and dishonest to boot, as it involves flattering local worthies with august portraits.

This is why Vigeland is less than thrilled when Sophus, his long-suffering agent, shows up with an offer to make a bust of none other than Henrik Ibsen, "Norway's chief export, after salted cod." Still, the wolf is at the door and the sculptor is guaranteed a prominent resting place, all of which may help Vigeland get the green light from Oslo's city government for that fountain. He agrees to a meeting, reluctantly submitting to what amounts to a job interview with Ibsen.

As played by John Noble, Ibsen is a proud, preening monument of a man, arrayed with medals and looking as if he expects everyone in the room to genuflect in his presence. As such, he is a total provocation to Vigeland. Ibsen allows that he considers a sculpture of him to be unnecessary, remarking sardonically, "Two dozen plays! Apparently that's insufficient to guarantee me a place in the public's memory." What follows is a tricky game of psychological cat and mouse: Vigeland may loathe the project but he can't stop himself from chiseling away at the great man's outsized sense of self. "I would make every effort to stave off obscurity," he murmurs, producing examples of scathing reviews of Ibsen's plays. "A critic is to a work of art what a barnacle is to a whale," Ibsen snarls, before producing a rave notice by, of all people, James Joyce. Vigeland goes further, probing such sore points as Ibsen's infidelities and his relationship with the son who dwells in his shadow. "You'd refute every rumor, every crass innuendo printed in the scandal sheets," he argues. Ibsen, disgusted by such manipulation, departs.

The balance of power between them is reversed when Ibsen suffers a debilitating stroke and calls for Vigeland; the sculptor makes his way through the teeming crowd of idolaters -- including Edvard Munch and Eleonora Duse -- outside Ibsen's house. Arriving there, he encounters a man hobbled by illness and self-doubt. He begs Vigeland to change his mind, and, in a remarkable aria of self-loathing, admits how he has subordinated his wife and son to his work. Speaking of the latter, he says, sadly, "For him you must carve a different father altogether."

Posterity isn't Wright's most accomplished play -- it's basically two big scenes buttressed by a couple of tiny subplots, but as a vehicle for two fine actors, it succeeds magnificently. The author, who also directed, has gotten superb performances from his leads. Linklater, his hair looking as if it has been through a hurricane, his clothes covered with bits of clay, turns Vigeland into a memorably intense, almost menacing figure. Whether hissing at the mention of his rivals, hurling food at a recalcitrant model, or gently guiding Ibsen through his tortured confessions, you believe that he is the sort of man who would put his entire life on the line for his art. He is also convincingly Machiavellian when trying to wear down Ibsen's resistance. ("The critics, your peers, your son, even your wife...we're faulty vessels. Bronze is stronger.") The Australian actor John Noble is an imposing figure, whether dismissing the press ("Critics are paid to keep abreast of my work; I am not paid to keep abreast of theirs") or recounting a disturbing dream, in which the Devil points out to him that his plays will remain relevant only as long as vice thrives in the world. This is as formidable a pairing as Off Broadway has to offer right now.

Under Wright's direction, the rest of the cast delivers, as well, including Henry Stram as the priggish, yet practical, Sophus ("An artist is a sculptor with an ego"), Dale Soules as Vigeland's cleaning lady/model ("I have a deep and abiding passion for laundry"), and Mickey Theis, as Vigeland's assistant, who has artistic ambitions of his own ("It's best to study those you're hoping to subvert") and who figures in a tragic second-act plot twist that I didn't see coming.

Most of the play unfolds on Derek McLane's expansive set depicting Vigeland's studio, the shelves filled with covered-up busts, but the designer also manages a fairly rapid and graceful transition to Ibsen's apartment. The first set is filled with sunlight pouring in through the stage left windows, courtesy of designer David Lander, who also provides a nicely contrasting lamplit interior look for Ibsen's house. Susan Hilferty's costumes are meticulously detailed, drawing clear differences in wealth and social status between Vigeland, Ibsen, and Sophus. David Van Tieghem provided the original music, with its tensely plucked strings, along with such sound effects as birdsong, a crowd, and the tolling of bells.

Posterity ends with both Vigeland and Ibsen shaken in their certainties about life and art. Does it matter that life eventually contradicted them -- that Vigeland went on to a distinguished career, even creating an enormous sculpture garden, and that Ibsen ended up one of the most canonical of playwrights? Not really -- as Wright intuits, both men were probably well aware that, in choosing their careers, they were laying down very large bets. And as life would have it, both went to their graves not knowing if their success would survive them. The payoff, when it came, was much too late. -- David Barbour