Sun 3 May, 2009
By J. Scott Hill
I was involved in Drama in school, never a sport. It was impossible for me to take part, in any meaningful way, in both the fall play and a fall sport. I did not really enjoy sports anyway. I enjoyed the Harlem Globetrotters, but they were vaudeville mixed with sport. When the ABA was around, they showcased basketball street style, Globetrotter style. The ABA’s biggest star had to be Julius Irving. Dr. J. set benchmarks for theatricality and athleticism that stood until Michael Jordan blessed Chicago and the NBA with his spectacle and skill.
For The History Boys, the TimeLine Theatre is configured like a basketball court. The newly rediscovered and refinished hardwood stage is flanked by risers, creating a house with the feel of bleachers in a school gym. When the house opens, several actors are already in place: the path to the seats is a crazy-quilt of dorm rooms, two stories high, in which the students are engaged in the routines of daily life. At the opposite end of the stage is a door, with a foyer beyond in cutaway view. Above the door is a balcony that doubles as the staff room and the choir loft. This set is a collage of a British boarding school, but is never a jumble. It is magnificent. Scenic Designer Brian Sidney Bembridge will win awards for this set.
At five minutes to curtain, I am marveling at this ingenious use of space, gawking at the little bits of stage business playing out in the dorm rooms. I wonder what sort of gift TimeLine will present in this showy box.
The History Boys is the story of three teachers and eight boys at a British boarding school in the 1980s. Playwright Allen Bennett does not update and rehash Goodbye, Mr. Chips or To Sir, with Love; rather, Bennett breaks the genre by focusing on the young students’ mental and emotional transitions into adulthood. The show is about becoming, about these young men defining themselves — through their developing sexualities, through how they will choose to market themselves to the universities they aspire to attend, through what knowledge they will remember as important when they look back upon these formative days at school. The script is provocative and funny and even daring at times.
This ensemble climbs into Bennett’s amazing script and explodes it, vaporizes it, leaves no trace that these are characters whose words and actions have been predestined; the actors vanish, only schoolboys and their teachers remain.
Donald Brearley as the boys’ self-appointed mentor Hector is avuncular in the good ways and the bad ways. Brearley plays Hector with intelligence, diligence, humor, and wretchedness.
Professor Irwin imprisons himself in the very sort of mental boxes he is constantly encouraging the boys to flip upside-down and unpack. Andrew Carter brings a stunning combination of depth and naiveté to Irwin.
Ann Wakefield shines brightly as Mrs. Lintott, history teacher. She brings continuity of personality to a character who is always at opposites — proper and bawdy, reasoned and emotional. When Lintott uses an expletive that I will not repeat here, Wakefield makes it exactly the right word for Lintott to have used. She is the show’s conscience.
Of the boys, Joel Gross stands out as the handsome lad Dakin. Women and girls, and men and boys are all attracted to Dakin. Gross captures masculine sexiness without an overabundance of machismo. Gross plays Dakin as more than just handsome and horny as Hell; he is thoughtful and adventurous as well. He is not the typical pretty-boy user/loser of a coming-of-age story.
The treasure of this show, the diamond among these other gems, is Alex Weisman. Weisman plays Posner — a boy who has the perceived disadvantages of being Jewish, fat, and gay. Through the course of the show we see him come out to himself and come into his own. Posner is one of the characters we get to see a couple of decades later in life in a few scenes. Weisman carefully and cunningly takes the audience through transformation after transformation of Posner, always mapping out emotionally how he came to one place from another.
All of the boys’ personal struggles are pushed forward by the shared desire to keep the boys moving forward — out of school, into university, and unto the rest of their lives. Music Director Doug Peck deserves a nod for his excellent soundscape — especially the well-chosen and well placed New Wave classics by the likes of XTC, Echo and the Bunnymen, and The Smiths.
Director Nick Bowling masterfully steers us through the shoals and rapids of late adolescence. He has wrung life itself out of this script and onto the stage.
The paltry praise I heap upon this production is inadequate; words escape me because I am left slack-jawed.
The TimeLine Theatre has delivered The History Boys in perfect condition. Scenic Designer Brian Sidney Bembridge’s wondrously showy box contains a fantastic gift for us: people to care about, rather than characters to watch.
The History Boys productions in London and New York won scads of awards. TimeLine Theatre has blessed Chicago with this production of The History Boys, setting new benchmarks for spectacle and skill.
4 STARS
(“The History Boys” runs through June 21 at the TimeLine Theatre, 615 W. Wellington, (773) 281-8463.)
TimeLine Theatre Company :: Plays Inspired by History
One Response to “The History Boys - REVIEW”
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Dorien Grey says:
Excellent, moving play, excellently staged and performed, and excellently encapsulated in this review.