Date: Fri 01-Dec-1995

Publication: Bee

Author: SHANNO

Illustration: C

Location: A-12

Quick Words:

Theatre-Pentecost-Edgar-Rep

Full Text:

(rev of Pentecost at Yale Rep, New Haven, 12/1/95)

Theatre Review-

Rep Productio Provides No Easy Answers

(with photo)

By Julie Stern

NEW HAVEN - One of my all-time favorite political cartoons was drawn by

Oliphant in 1990 and widely reprinted. The caption read "In little Metwurstia,

recently freed from Communist oppression, the people immediate celebrate

freedom by murdering their hated minority, the Zugs." The cartoon showed an

enthused Mettwurstian kneeling over the victim he was about to kill,

explaining "Why? Because it's our nature!"

At the time, I think he drew it as a commentary on the Azerbajani persecution

of Armenians, but it applies equally well to any other group whose own

nationalistic aspirations entail the genocidal "cleansing" of ethnic or

religious minorities, the most horrific example of which in today's news being

the atrocities reported from Bosnia.

British playwright David Edgar's Pentecost , on stage at Yale Rep through

December 2, was written as a response to the war in Bosnia. Intellectually

complex, theatrically stunning, it is a highly original thriller that mixes

art history, terrorism, linguistics and the impact of western pop culture on

newly-liberated Eastern Europe.

Taking place in a small unnamed country that has, over the years, been

conquered in turn by Turks, Bulgarians, Hungarians, Germans and Communists,

the play is set in an old church that has been redesignated by each invading

power - a mosque, an orthodox church, a Roman church, a German army transit

center, a museum of atheism, a storehouse for potatoes, and finally a place

where a prostitute can turn a quick trick.

Dominating the stage is a huge socialist realist mural, painted on the main

inside wall. The premise of the play is that a young woman curator at the

country's national museum has discovered that beneath the mural, and the

layers of undercoating left by previous religions, lies a fresco that dates

back nearly 800 years. If the painting is authentic, it would mean the

Renaissance - the dawn of modern western civilization - actually began here,

100 years before the Italian Giotto was thought to have started it with his

"invention" of perspective.

While the mystery of the fresco's provenance is probed and debated by British

and American art historians and its possession is contested by orthodox and

Roman priests, national thugs and bureaucrats, the church is suddenly invaded

by a band of armed terrorists who are actually a desperate assembly of

stateless refugees. They take the art historians hostage and threaten to kill

them and destroy the painting unless they are granted safe passage and work

permits for a country willing to take them in.

Is the painting genuine? Will the spunky curator and the timid English art

historian fall in love? Will any of them get out alive? That is the plot. But

what the play is really about is the murderous divisions that exist between

people, and the fragile bridges that sometimes get built, and the role

language plays in both.

The "Pentecost" of the title refers to the part in the New Testament where the

Holy Ghost entered into the Apostles, causing them to speak in unintelligible

tongues and yet be miraculously understood.

A more pervasive image in the play, however, is the story of the Tower of

Babel. That ambitious project to build a tower to the sky and so enable humans

to seize control of heaven itself was aborted when God caused men to suddenly

speak different languages. Once they could no longer understand one another,

they fell to fighting and the tower was never finished. The story stands as a

mythic explanation for the origin of senseless warfare and ethnic hate.

The idea of the tower is suggested by the scaffolding surrounding the

painting, and the fact the church was originally called Saint John of the

Ladder, and by the polyglot group of terrorists who are fired by their dream

of reaching the heaven of western Europe.

The terrorists are played by actual native speakers of the nationalities they

represent, and Edgar has them alternate between the colloquial English that

has become the lingua franca of much of the third world, and Arabic, German,

Turkish, Russian, Polish, Sinhalese and Bulgarian, interspersed with fragments

from "Star Trek" (which they know all about from pirated transmissions). They

translate for each other and for the hostages as they tell their terrible

stories of persecution and atrocities.

One of the most moving scenes in the play is when, to break the tension caused

by negotiating with the SWAT commandos outside the church, they begin telling

stories. Gradually it becomes clear the same stories exist in each of their

cultures, and in the flood of common fellow feeling that ensues, anger

dissipates as they crowd around their bound and frightened hostages, smiling

and sharing precious family snapshots.

The staging in the Yale Rep production is remarkable. With each scene, more of

the brick wall is taken down so the painting is gradually uncovered and

revealed. The large cast is uniformly wonderful, and the funny lines will make

you laugh as hard as the serious ones make you think.

Language is used to debate, to joke, to flirt, to judge and to inspire, all

while the big questions are being raised: Can art ever be really more

important than human beings? Is there any place on earth that really will take

in the tired and poor and huddled masses yearning to breathe free? Is fascism

about to start all over again?

Do we need national identities and borders and boundaries in an age where

everyone recognizes "Beam me up, Scotty" and "Okey dokey"? If we wipe out a

people's culture, what happens to their history?

We aren't given any answers in Pentecost because of course there are no easy

ones, but at least Edgar makes you think about it. And perhaps that is the

first step to building a bridge.