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If you are Richard Romagnoli, the fearless co-artistic director of PTP/NYC (aka the Potomac Theatre Project), you boldly move ahead with another production by the same playwright, you star a five-time Tony nominated actress, and you pull out all the stops to come up with an absolutely gripping and often surprisingly funny evening of over-the-top theater. The playwright in question is Howard Barker, the British writer who describes his body of work as "Theatre of Catastrophe" and a man for whom it might be said, "nothing exceeds like excess." The play is Barker's Scenes from an Execution, which began life as a radio drama in 1984 and which relates the story of a brilliant if highly unconventional 16th century Venetian artist. And the star, who has performed with the company on a number of occasions, is the indomitable Jan Maxwell. The production of Scenes from an Execution is being offered in rotating rep at Atlantic Stage 2 with a pair of one-acts: Barker's Judith: A Parting from the Body (which contains the aforementioned scene of necrophilia) and Caryl Churchill's Vinegar Tom. The double bill is well performed, but neither of the short plays can hold a candle to this full-length work, which is generally acknowledged to be one of Barker's more straightforward and accessible plays. That Ms. Maxwell has announced her intention to retire from the stage after this production places it in the "must-see" category for her many admirers. But, truly, she is absolutely terrific as the seemingly bipolar Galactia, a fiercely independent realistic artist in a field dominated by males who specialize in portraits of their wealthy patrons or ethereal religious art done at the behest of the Church. Galactia springs from Barker's imagination, but the play does such an extraordinary job of describing the work of art at its center—a commission by the Venetian government to depict the glories of a military victory (though Galactia takes it in another direction)—that one longs to see the finished product, which brings grown men to tears and has Galactia hauled off to prison. The play opens in true Barker and PTP/NYC style, with a scene depicting Galactia's lover, the artist Carpeta (David Barlow), splayed naked over an overturned chair, his buttocks thrust upwards. Galactia is sketching him in this pose because "dead men float with their arses in the air," and she is determined that her public work will show the public the brutal truth of battle. Ultimately, she succeeds so well in her mission that her patrons, the Doge of Venice (Alex Draper) and the Cardinal (Steven Dykes), fear the likely backlash over their use of government funds for a painting that the Cardinal describes as "all meat and chopped up genitalia." This is not what they had in mind for a work of art that was supposed to celebrate the nobility, honor, and heroism of the victorious battle. The pair has Galactia thrown briefly into prison and quickly hire Carpeta to do a version more in keeping with what they want. But since Carpeta's skill and reputation lie in a series of pastoral portraits of Jesus ("I have one," boasts the Cardinal), he is unable to produce anything that is near the quality of Galactia's original. So like all good government functionaries, they reframe their pitch and claim that it was their intent all along to show the dark side of war. During the course of the play, Barker has a great deal to say—with lots of sharply satiric jabs—about the art of making art, the artist's dependence on financial support from commissions, political wrangling, the role of the art critic, and the place of women in the art world. And, true to his general stance on showing all sides of an argument, he allows each of his characters to have their say. We may sympathize with Galactia's artistic position, but we can also see that she is a difficult and uncompromising my-way-or-the-highway sort of person, who alienates even her closest allies. And while we may scoff at the Doge and the Cardinal, we also can see things from their perspective. Richard Romagnoli directs all of this mayhem with complete assuredness, and while Ms. Maxwell stands at the center, the rest of the cast is equally up to the intellectual lunacy that prevails. And for a small production of a major play, much consideration has been given to the lighting design (Mark Evancho) and the sound design (Cormac Bluestone). With Scenes from an Execution, PTP/NYC absolutely lives up to its reputation for providing exciting and provocative theater during its annual visit to Atlantic Stage 2.
Scenes from an Execution
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