REVIEW by Anthony Chase
Road Less Traveled Theater continues its devotion to the work of Donald Margulies with their production of his play, Shipwrecked! An Entertainment, The Amazing Adventures of Louis de Rougemont. (Let’s just call it “Shipwrecked!”) Margulies had been part of RLTP’s American Theatre Masters program when they presented his play, The Country House. His plays, Collected Stories and Sight Unseen have also been produced locally.
Shipwrecked uses a highly performative and theatricalized style to retell the true story of Louis de Rougemont, a real historic person, who was born Henri Louis Grin in Switzerland, and who had lived in Australia and in England. In 1898, he began to publish tales of his life adventures, which he claimed began on an exhibition in search of pearls in New Guinea. He also claimed to have been the only survivor of a shipwreck that left him alone and abandoned with a hoard of pearls, worthless to a shipwrecked man, and to have spent thirty years living among indigenous people of the region having marvelous experiences.
The fact that he couldn’t show where he had been on a map or speak any indigenous language, and that tales of riding sea turtles seemed unlikely, invited doubt from the very beginning. Questioning by the Royal Geographical Society did not improve his credibility.
John Hurley has directed this stylish and efficient Road Less Traveled production, which features Gregory Gjurich as de Rougemont, with Gabriella McKinley and Jeremy Kreuzer portraying everyone else in his life. It’s a smart production that moves along crisply with every gesture and detail meticulously plotted and rehearsed. The set by Diane Burlingame places the action in a perfect Victoria toy theater recreated in full scale. The story is told in a style more familiar from children’s theater, with very presentational exposition and props that make references literal.
Gregory Gjurich is perfectly cast as de Rougemont, who strives to endear himself to the audience as he recounts his thrilling adventures with unflinching conviction. Gabriella McKinley rapidly and skillfully takes on a vastly diverse array of personalities, from a sea captain to de Rougemont’s aboriginal wife, to his mother, to Queen Victoria. Kreuzer, is similarly superb, and scores a particular triumph as de Rougemont’s feisty and devoted dog, Bruno.
While that play does not have the depth and psychological complexity of Margulies’s more familiar plays, it does share many of their obsessions. Plays like Sight Unseen, The Country House, and Collected Stories explore the ideas of memory and perception, and of identity and self-creation. The line between reality and imagination is frequently blurred in his plays, as he invites us to question the nature of truth and storytelling.
Shipwrecked is more boldly comedic and presentational than Margulies’s other plays and the Road Less Traveled staging provides an instructive contrast for those familiar with his work. For others, it provides a playful romp through some of his dramatic preoccupations.
The production continues through October 13th. https://www.roadlesstraveledproductions.org/
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