A halfhearted 'Don Juan' at Mount Airy's Sedgwick Theater
Whether interpreted by Mozart, Byron, Shaw, Johnny Depp, or - as in Quintessence Theatre's current production at Mount Airy's Sedgwick Theater - Molière, the name Don Juan evokes one recurring theme: unrepentant womanizing. Molière's 1665 morality play (i
Whether interpreted by Mozart, Byron, Shaw, Johnny Depp, or - as in Quintessence Theatre's current production at Mount Airy's Sedgwick Theater - Molière, the name Don Juan evokes one recurring theme: unrepentant womanizing. Molière's 1665 morality play (itself based on an earlier Spanish tale) also received its share of treatments. Quintessence artistic director Alexander Burns chose Neil Bartlett's 2004 translation, most likely for its contemporary flavor, stocking it with Anthony DeSando as the Don, most likely for his Jon Hamm-jawed, Fabio-ponytailed swagger.
But while casting DeSando is one of the director's better ideas, the production is riddled with less successful decisions. There's an inconsistent vision at work, one that doesn't know whether to play Bartlett's humor up or down (hint: aim high), and often leaves Don Juan's reluctant servant Sganarelle (John G. Williams) resting his exasperated head in his hands, rather than bristling with offense as a lightning rod for Don Juan and a beacon of empty religiosity. Burns also hampers DeSando in one scene by having him stiffly declaim his indictments of conventional behavior while standing on a chair.
This doesn't jibe with the satirical tone and modern inflection of other scenes, particularly the argument (its most frequent adjective: friggin') between betrothed peasants Charlotte (Bethany Ditnes) and Pierrot (Griffin Stanton-Ameisen) - Charlotte, of course, has fallen under the Don's spell. But perhaps the production's worst misstep, and most revealing for its halfheartedness, is Burns' inability to get a proper "youse" out of Ditnes. In Philadelphia. When he added the colloquialism in the first place.
Bryce Page's sound design brings similar head-scratching. Why the incongruous bursts of between-scenes electronic music? There's not much set (and no set designer), just a black platform with five black-framed doorways upstage, no real period for the costumes (by Jane Casanave). DeSando first appears in a cream-colored, South Beach-ready linen suit, while Sganarelle wears a morning coat and bowler hat - and while that might work in a production highlighting, say, the timelessness of hedonism, here it just seems as though no one could make up his/her mind.
What works? DeSando maintains a delicate balance between arrogance and insecurity. Jessica DalCanton gives a sensitive reading of scorned Dona Elvira. And the living statue that seals Don Juan's fate is impressively rendered as an enormous rod puppet.
Bartlett sited the play in a hotel, a purgatorial space that offered Don Juan endless opportunities, and no escape. Burns, however, sites this production anywhere and nowhere, making it tough to care much about this rake's progress.
Don Juan
Through March 13 at Sedgwick Theater, 7137 Germantown Ave. Tickets: $10-$30.
Information: 215-240-6055 or quintessencetheatre.org
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