Theatre in Review: Golden Age (Manhattan Theatre Club/City Center)

	Lee Pace and Will Rogers (in background) Photo: Joan Marcus

Art is long; life is short -- a statement that is one of the cornerstones of Terrence McNally's remarkable body of work. (The playwright would probably add that life is complicated, often violent, usually frustrating, and occasionally hilarious.) With McNally, "art" usually means music; twice before, he has explored the porous border between opera and real life, in The Lisbon Traviata, which juxtaposes the conversation of two rabid opera fans with scenes from a crumbling gay relationship, and in Master Class, which presents Maria Callas near the end of her life, recalling a career that sounds like the plot of an opera, full of grand passions, betrayals, and bitter acts of sacrifice. In these plays, music acts as a powerful and benign drug, transporting his characters, however temporarily, from the vale of tears they inhabit.

McNally returns to this theme again in Golden Age, which, in many ways, has the manner of an old-fashioned backstage comedy; the setting, however, is the Théâtre Italien in Paris in 1835, on the opening night of Vincenzo Bellini's I Puritani. At first, there's little that you haven't seen before -- flowers, jewels, high-strung divas, preening baritones, and extravagant remarks. ("God created man, but Italians created opera.") There's plenty of amusing commentary for the fan. "This is the world's most interminable overture, and I wrote it!" snaps Bellini. "Don Pasquale -- talk about a flat title," sneers one of the singers. Bellini sits down at the piano and spins a few tunes, including the theme from The Godfather and "Memory," from Cats, to name two examples of popular tunes plundered from the classical repertory.

For all the horseplay, however, there are shadows gathering around the central character: I Puritani was Bellini's final work; he died a few months later, at the age of 34. In and around the comedy of egotistical singers and music-world gossip, Golden Age offers a portrait of the artist as a dying young man. The two most important people in his life are present: Francesco Florimo, his constant companion and probably his lover, and Maria Malibran, one of the most famous, and tempestuous, divas of the era. Neither has much of a claim on Bellini, a fact that becomes poignantly clear when, listening to his music, he drifts into his own private oblivion, unable to recognize either of them.

Oddly, music of a verbal kind is mostly missing from Golden Age, a modestly amusing work that nevertheless lacks the hilarity and horror of The Lisbon Traviata or the powerful, gutsy emotions of Master Class. For one thing, McNally's sense of humor has, on this occasion, turned surprisingly crude. One joke about Antonio, the company's baritone, stuffing his crotch to impress his female admirers would have been more than enough; we get three or four variations on it. When Luigi, the company's bass, intimates to Bellini how much he enjoys orally pleasing his female partners, Bellini leers, "So, you're a pearl fisher?" "I may be a bitch, but I'm not a c---," says Malibran, insisting that even she is above certain crimes. "There won't be a dry seat in the house," someone else comments.

Furthermore, the triangle at the play's center is rather wanly drawn, largely because Bellini's interest in either partner only goes so far. Florimo, who in real life was a composer, teacher, historian, and, later, something of a professional keeper of the flame, is presented as a civilian among artists; he has a touching speech indicating his feelings for Bellini -- it suggests that they sleep together -- but McNally stops short of showing them as lovers. Before she appears, we are led to believe that Malibran is a real hellion -- and with Bebe Neuwirth playing her, it is reasonable to expect some flashing fans and caustic remarks, even a catfight or two -- but she proves to be surprisingly composed, given to a certain stoic melancholy over her failing voice, and fond of aphorisms that could use a little more zing. ("Good food corrupts; great food corrupts absolutely.") An exchange of insults between her and Giulia Grisi, I Puritani's leading lady, hasn't much spark.

Neuwirth isn't the only member of the cast not being seen to best advantage. Lee Pace doesn't seem entirely comfortable in the role of Bellini; what's entirely missing is the sense of a great talent and extravagant temperament who is all too aware that time is running out. Much of the time, he barely seems ill. (A bloody handkerchief, produced with a flourish, provides the diagnosis of consumption.) It also seems strange to cast the perfectly presentable, 32-year-old Eddie Kaye Thomas as a tenor who is considered by the others to be too old and subpar in the looks department. (On the other hand, Deirdre Friel, Ethan Phillips, and Lorenzo Pisoni are all good company as I Puritani's leading players and Will Rogers is touching as Florimo, keeping an ever-watchful eye on the man he loves.)

Nevertheless, Golden Age leaves a better impression than you might think, thanks to two striking second-act passages. In the first, Malibran, trying out one of Bellini's scores, speaks the words of an aria, while the composer quietly accompanies her on the piano. What starts out as a fairly flat reading gradually becomes a study in furiously repressed emotion, a challenging bit of business with which Neuwirth makes stage magic. Even better is an eleventh-hour appearance by Gioachino Rossini, Golden Age's's special guest composer; as portrayed by the ever-reliable George Morfogen, he is a weary old man, done with writing music yet still able to appreciate genius when he sees it; his awareness of the brief time left has rendered him almost compulsively honest -- his own wife, the noted Isabella Colbran, wasn't even a patch on Malibran's talent, he sadly notes -- and unsentimentally aware of his many regrets. The actor casts an Prospero-like glow that suddenly makes Golden Age seem more than a bit of frivolity for Metropolitan Opera subscribers.

Adding to the enjoyment is the play's smashing physical production. Santo Loquasto places a kind of rehearsal room at stage center, with a curving staircase leading to the stage and a cutaway view of Giulia's dressing room. There is a set of mirrors that turn transparent to reveal Malibran's surprise cameo appearance in I Puritani, singing a few offstage lines when Giulia is indisposed. Jane Greenwood combines gorgeously detailed costumes for I Puritani with opera house finery; Neuwirth's blood-red gown is especially stunning. Ryan Rumery's sound design keeps the score of I Puritani playing in the background without distracting from the dialogue; this is no mean feat. Among his sound effects, the pounding of a cane to announce the curtain's going up, strikes a powerfully solemn mood. Peter Kaczorowski's lighting is unfailingly sensitive to the play's changes of moods.

McNally has given us so many fine things it seems ungrateful to complain, but Golden Age is at best a casual work, a lighter treatment of themes that have engaged him more powerfully in the past.--David Barbour