Theatre in Review: Medieval Play (Signature Theatre)

	Josh Hamilton and Tate Donovan. Photo: Joan Marcus

It may be an early candidate for worst play of the season, but Medieval Play has one of the best openings in town. A lush red velvet curtain -- part of Walt Spangler's expansive and devilishly clever set design -- parts to reveal a pair of knights, posed alongside a pile of rubble, with a set of rolling hills in the background. "By God, things certainly are grim here in medieval France," one of them comments, and we're off and running, as, taking a respite from raping and pillaging, this armored pair debates whether they're living in the best of times or the worst of times. As one of them notes, there's "the general dissolution of feudalism" and "technological developments like gunpowder doing away with armor and castles." On the other hand, his companion notes, "The air is really clean." Also, he asks, "What about the stained glass? It's a great time for that." Other plus factors noted are three-field crop rotation and the flying buttress. As played with perfect timing by Josh Hamilton and Tate Donovan, it has the hilarity of a Nichols and May sketch.

The only problem is, the joke on which the scene is based -- the knights' moral cluelessness, combined with their remarkable facility with 21st century concepts -- is all Medieval Play has to offer. And it keeps offering it, for more than two-and-a-half hours, to steadily diminishing returns. Our two picaresque knights, Ralph and Alfred, roam 14th-century Europe, getting caught up in various papal intrigues and committing mass slaughter, putting down a revolt in Italy, eviscerating the members of a well-born family who offer them hospitality, and helping to facilitate the Avignon papacy. The script is both deeply erudite -- you will learn more than you ever cared to know about various religious and political intrigues and the players behind them -- and stupider than the worst Adam Sandler film. There are scenes of simulated defecation and sexual intercourse; characters blow their noses into their hands. The first time Catherine of Siena, denied access to the pope, responds with "He'd better see me, motherfucker," it's worth a shock laugh. The next ten times she uses the word, it's worth nothing at all.

The playwright, Kenneth Lonergan, is clearly holding up a mirror to the medieval era -- a time of social breakdown, power deadlocks, and moral confusion -- hoping that we will see our own reflections. And, from time to time, Medieval Play does just that. But, as was the case with his last play, The Starry Messenger, a small, but workable, idea is lost in a supersized package -- in this case, a script full of tedious digressions and endlessly repetitive vulgarities. For me, the low point is the scene in which the knights dine at a castle where the lady of the house (Haley Feiffer, flailing in a way that I've never seen her do before) lectures her guests on the latest etiquette, including the proper disposal of spit and snot at the dinner table. This is followed by a bedroom escapade in which Feiffer's character commits adultery with Hamilton's knight -- he takes her from behind while, screaming not in pleasure but in agony, she denounces her own lust, thus causing him to lose his erection, which they frantically try to restore. This grimly unfunny sequence ends with both Feiffer and her husband, played by C. J. Wilson, being run through with swords. By the way, this is the kind of production in which, every time someone is killed -- which is every couple of minutes -- they squawk in allegedly comic fashion and fling themselves on the floor.

And so it goes, at stupefying length -- when, at the top of Act II, Catherine of Siena announced, "We have a long way to go," I think I began to whimper quietly -- with the plot becoming increasingly incomprehensible and scene after scene adding length, but no additional meaning, to Lonergan's thesis. Under the author's direction, Hamilton and Donovan continue to get the odd laugh all night long; I particularly treasured the moment when Hamilton, recalling how his wife, back home in Picardy, has her hands full, what with burying the dead children and dropping boiling oil on invaders at their castle, chuckles, "She's terrific," in his best I-don't-know-how-she-does-it fashion. But the rest of the cast, including Kevin Geer as various corrupt prelates; John Pankow as, among others, a bloodthirsty cardinal; and Heather Burns as the foulmouthed Catherine of Siena, all plug away to little or no effect.

It's all the more surprising, then, that Medieval Play looks and sounds terrific. Spangler's setting, a kind of pop-up European countryside, plays various tricks of perspective as castles, tents, and ships of many sizes fly in and out. (Some deftly sketched sheep and knights on horseback also pass by.) It's a charming cartoon, frequently wittier than the play that contains it. Jason Lyons' excellent lighting lends definition to Spangler's purposely flat designs, filing out the stage pictures. Michael Krass' costumes include an array of suits of armor, medieval gowns, bedclothes, and clerical wear of all sorts. David van Tieghem's sound design runs the gamut from the clash of battle to the balm of plainsong.

At the same time, such sumptuous work may have the effect of making Medieval Play seem an even greater waste of resources. Kenneth Lonergan is as fine a playwright as the 1990s produced, and, as You Can Count on Me proved, he has a fine way with film as well. (I haven't seen his famously troubled latest release, Margaret.) I'm praying that this and The Starry Messenger will go down as aberrations in his career; perhaps I should direct my prayer to Catherine of Siena.--David Barbour