Playwright: Derek Wolcott
At: Pegasus Players at Truman College's O'Rourke Center, 1145 W. Wilson
Phone: 773-878-9761; $17-$25
Runs through: Oct. 22
BY MARY SHEN BARNIDGE
The minute we hear the premise—an English hotelier on the remote West-Indies isle of Tobago proposes to entertain his holiday guests with a burlesque of Robinson Crusoe, assisted by his native major-domo—we anticipate dialogues on race relations, Anglocentric imperialism, rigidly-enforced social orders, male-bonding rituals and an array of topical issues viewed in a microcosm.
Author Derek Wolcott delivers all that, to be sure, but just when we think his two zanies are destined to be little more than op-ed placards, the action suddenly shifts into a macrocosm on an individual level, as we learn what has made Harry abandon a career on the British music-hall stage to commandeer a bed-and-breakfast, where he festers in loneliness during the off-season, muttering passages from The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner and musing on the attractions of throwing himself off the cliff-face into the sea. Why the preternaturally cosmopolitan Jackson should be concerned with his employer's malaise is never specified, but like the humane Rousseauan savage in Defoe's novel, he assumes whatever duties are necessary to restore the status quo.
This personal approach doesn't mean that the dynamic is not still as artificial as those in the 1719 adventure yarn that provides its framing device. ( Though incorporating material drawn from actual accounts of shipwreck victims—notably Alexander Selkirk—Robinson Crusoe is, after all, a fictional story. ) Fortunately, this Pegasus Players production has director Jonathan Wilson, who is nothing if not thorough in his exploration of every last nuance and overtone lurking beneath the glib verbal exchanges. He is matched in his diligence by André Teamer and Kipp Moorman, who never allow their characters or dialects to waver for an instant from the moment at hand, no matter how its conceits may strain our suspension of disbelief.
'Keep it light!' cautions Harry, at one point. 'We don't want to commit ART.' Lazy theatregoers may, certainly, restrict their observations to Walcott's symposial chat, but ultimately, don't all international politics come down to just such small reconciliations? And if two human beings can fend off despair while finding their place in the universe, does that not hint at hope for conflict-ravaged countries as well?