Songs in Dickens' throat and bananas underfoot

PATRICK MCGARVEY/YH Attend the tale of Edwin Drood/ Like Oliver, he enjoyed his food.

If you're one of those audience members who likes to disappear into your seat when the lights dim and the curtain rises, The Mystery of Edwin Drood might force you to abandon your cherished anonymity. As soon as the performance begins, actors flood the floor, chatting with the audience and creating the ebullient, flamboyant atmosphere that comes to characterize Drood in its entirety.

These actors remain on the floor throughout the first musical number, singing directly to various spectators during the song. Following this introduction, the scene opens in the Music Hall Royale, which is filled with an eclectic company of harlots, clergy, debutantes, and other distinctive personalities. After the initial encounter with these actors, they step out of their "real life" roles and launch into a retelling of Edwin Drood's story, a tale based on a Charles Dickens novel left unfinished at the author's death.

As the story unfolds in a series of musical and dramatic sequences, it tangles itself into a complex web of action and motivation, centered around young Drood (Amy Justman, SM '00). He is engaged to be married to the lovely young Rosa (Ann Moller, SY '03), whom his uncle, John Jasper (Ben Eakeley, DC '00) also loves. Tensions mount between Drood and Neville (Vikram Swamy, PC '03), a foreigner from Ceylon, as the play progresses, and Jasper conceals jealousy of his nephew's engagement. Then, Drood mysteriously disappears on Christmas Eve with no explanation of what has transpired or who is responsible. In keeping with the production's interactivity, the cast performs the ending of the play after the audience has voted on how the tale should be resolved. We decide the fate of young Drood and thus complete Dickens' unfinished tale.

The Mystery of Edwin Drood is written and staged in a manner that encourages strong opinions from its spec-tators. Every facet of the production is done to excess, from the elaborate costumes and set to the exaggerated, farcical antics of the actors. Nearly every word and gesture assails the senses with noise, color, and frantic movement. The script relies heavily on slapstick—frequently, the play derives its comic appeal from wild dances, overdone facial expressions, and various visual mishaps. The most obvious example of this humor is the casting of Drood as a woman in disguise, rather than as a man, for no apparent reason. There's more slapstick near the end of the play, when two policemen (Brian Fimoff, MC '03, and Derek Mc-Bride, BR '03) chase the fleeing Neville, repeatedly lifting their hats up and down over their heads as they run. Although the physical blunders of the characters in the play are often amusing, they also accumulate too quickly. At times, the stage is overrun with visual confusion, and the actors' antics become enervating rather than funny.

Drood's script parallels the staging of the play. The dialogue is relentlessly comical, to the point of becoming excessive. Some choice sequences scattered throughout the play are genuinely funny, however. In one instance, the Chairman (John McWilliams, MC '00) explains that one of the actors, originally slated for the part of the mayor, is unable to participate because of an injury he sustained while drunk. It is then revealed that he got into a fight over a lady's honor and, as McWilliams tells us, "apparently the lady wanted to keep it." Unfortunately, other sequences are elaborate to the point of fatigue.

Despite the exaggerated nature of the play, the visual richness of both Andrew Wallach's costumes and Nikolai Sviridchik's set enhance the production's overall character. In particular, the harlots' outrageous costumes catch the eye, as the actors parade around the stage in heavy make-up and brightly colored skirts complete with bustles, carrying such accessories as large red feather fans. Neville's costumes depict stereotypical Middle Eastern garb—Neville always appears in a turquoise turban, and his female friend wears bright flowing robes with a long veil covering her head and back. The set is also uniformly colorful and visually engaging. In the scene that occurs in Princess Puffer's (Erin Roberts, DC '02) op-ium den, the combination of scenery, lighting, and costume creates a hypnotic panorama. The scene has a hallucinogenic quality that recalls the orgy scene from Eyes Wide Shut without necessitating any digitally robed figures.

Drood is a heavily stylized production that relies primarily on slapstick humor for comic effect—it is not a play of nuance or subtlety, but of exaggeration. The actors play their roles consistently and well, and the visuals are impressively elaborate. But the play's flamboyance and excess sometimes induce cringing. Its title promises mysteries that Drood is not always able or willing to deliver.

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