By Julie Stern

NEW HAVEN — A friend confided recently that after spending several hours trapped in a doctor’s waiting room with nothing to read but the entertainment section of People magazine, she had an epiphany in which she realized that The DaVinci Code and Desperate Housewives are actually two versions of the same story.

Awakened in the small hours by an angry skunk who seemed to be located right beneath my husband’s closet, I became suddenly of a meaningful parallel between Underneath the Lintel, Glen Berger’s tour de force about a librarian obsessed with the myth of the Wandering Jew, and Albert Camus’ murky monologue delivered by a mysterious “judge-penitent,” The Fall. Long Wharf is currently offering its own take of Berger’s story on its Stage II through June 10.

In Camus’ novel, in a squalid Amsterdam bar on a rainy night, the unnamed narrator compels his listener (the reader) to hear his confession, only to switch roles midway through the story, becoming the “judge” as the reader is reluctantly led to identify with the speaker and recognize his own moral culpability. The “fall” of the title refers to Original Sin.

Berger’s play is also set in Holland, on a rainy night in a seedy warehouse in the town of Hoofdorp, built on polder (land reclaimed from the sea). Having been fired by the library, the main character has hired this building – the only forum he can find – to present his side of the story, complete with props and illustrative lantern slides.

Unmarried and friendless, a mousy little man whose desire for justice and dignity brings to mind a cross between Woody Allen and Peter Lorre,  The Librarian’s whole identity revolves around his job – which includes making sure that books returned through the drop slot in the door are not overdue. Otherwise they will incur fines and the violators will be held accountable.

Like a religious symbol he wears a universal date stamp on a chain around his neck, whose imprint on the due date sheet in the front of each book provides incontrovertible evidence.

One morning, he finds a tattered copy of a Baedeker travel guide that to his amazement is 113 years overdue. He sees it as his responsibility to pursue this matter and unravel the mystery of who had the book, and why it took so long to return it.

While that might seem a daunting task, he assures his audience that librarians are trained in research, and know how to unearth the evidence needed to answer questions. Beginning with a search of the library’s dusty old files, he learns that the book was last taken out in 1873, by a Mr. “A.” whose address was listed as a post office box in China.

Next he leafs through the pages of the book and discovers a claim ticket for a pair of trousers, left several years later at a Chinese laundry in London. He goes to London and finds the laundry (still in existence) and collects the trousers (which were never cleaned because they had been too badly worn).

In one pocket of the pants he finds a dated tram ticket which leads him to Germany, where he searches reports from tram conductors for that month about the kind of irresponsible passengers who might neglect to return their library books and finds an account of a Jew with a “funny hat” who refused to sit down, and who had  a badly behaved dog..

This sends the irrepressible sleuth back to England, looking for records of dogs from Europe being quarantined and he finds one who was never claimed, who wouldn’t sit down, and whose name was Sabrina! Well, if you change the first two letters of the name you get Zebrina, which is a green and purple hanging houseplant commonly called …The Wandering Jew!

Our man is on to something…

On one level the play seems to be the maniacal ravings of an obsessive-compulsive nutcase, which is what the library decided when they fired him. On the other levels at which it operates – and it definitely does – it is an exploration of the nature of faith, belief and the ways in which facts can be interpreted, rightly or wrongly, as evidence proving the truth of something which a seeker has a vested interest in believing. (The program notes include a reference to the President’s mention of “evidence” of  WMDs to justify our invasion of Iraq.)

It also (and this is where I started thinking of Camus) uses an archetypal story to shine a new light on the librarian’s own (and potentially the audience’s) existential dilemma. The Wandering Jew was originally an obscure shoemaker named Ahasuerus (Mr A?) whose house was directly in the path of Jesus as he was struggling to carry his cross up to Calvary.

When the exhausted Jesus tried to stop for a moment to rest in the shoemaker’s doorway (standing “underneath the lintel”),  Ashasuerus refused him shelter and drove him away. Angrily, Jesus told him that he would therefore be condemned to wander, without rest or companionship, until Judgment Day.

Using his trunkful of evidence, plus an assortment of slides projected on the wall, The Librarian argues his case that he has confirmed 19th and 20th Century sightings of the weary traveler. However, his point has changed to focus on the idea that if he can prove the reality of the legend, he is also proving the existence of God. And if he can do that, then he has Someone from whom to demand accountability for all the meaningless suffering in the world – the deaths of ten million in World War I, of 30 million in World War II, and so forth.

At the same time, the agitated anxiety of The Librarian forces him to examine his own life – his failure to marry the only woman he ever loved, his total emotional isolation, and, as with Ashasuerus, his inability to leave any permanent mark that would prove his own existence, not even a pair of trousers and a tram ticket.

Mark Nelson gives an amazing performance here, and the play offers a LOT to think about. If that kind of thinking is your cup of tea, then you will probably find Underneath the Lintel a provocative and stimulating and entertaining ninety minutes.

On the other hand, if you do not appreciate a mixture of psychological, philosophical and religious speculation, you might feel that it seems even longer than 113 years.

(Contact Long Wharf Theatre at 203-787-4282 or LongWharf.org for full production details.)