Gloucester Stage cannot be blamed, except for the choice of the play. (Those small-cast, one-set dramas can be seductive.) Given the theater’s budget constraints, set and lighting designers Jenna McFarland Lord and Russ Swift can make only a rudimentary suggestion of the oceanic isolation and autumnal twilight proposed by the script (though there is an eerie fade, along with some ghostly sound, in the closing moments). David Zoffoli is at the helm of the adequate production, which thrashes somewhat more than it needs to, especially when it comes to the interaction of Larsen and his overcoat. But David Volin reconciles the interrogator’s cunning with the desperation of the far-from-objective visitor he turns out to be. And it’s clear that Tom Markus, who has played Znorko is several productions of the play (and directed one), is at home with the Great Writer’s exterior smugness and inner terror. Still, there are just so many variations on a twist that two actors can pull off.
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Topics:
Theater
, Edward Elgar, Jenna McFarland Lord
