Playwright: Jules Romains
At: City Lit Theatre at Edgewater Presbyterian Church, 1020 W. Bryn
Mawr Ave.
Phone: ( 773 ) 293-3682; $18-$25
Runs through: March 27
'Health is an illusion. We are ALL ill to some degree'. So declares Dr. Knock, who can't wait to test his thesis. His opportunity presents itself when he becomes the physician for what his predecessor assures him is a singularly disease-free community, the small village of St. Maurice. In the first act of Jules Romains' neat little comedy, we are told the plan. In the second, we see the plan in action. And in the third, we see the outcome. Anybody wanna guess what it is?
Since before Hippocrates, society has been suspicious of doctors, the power their profession exercises over ordinary citizens rendering them vulnerable to corruption. And while no one can deny that one of medicine's goals is its own perpetuation, it's not just the money that drives our medicaster and his cohorts—the pharmacist, the schoolmaster and the innkeeper. To be sure, the local economy prospers under the influx of status-seeking patients desiring the same state-of-the-art care as their betters. But Dr. Knock comes to actually BELIEVE his own manifesto, and though adapter/director Richard Hesler stops short of waving a swastika, we are made very aware that a vision of world domination in the name of the Healing Arts ( 'where Medicine reigns SUPREME' ) is no less sinister than any other panacean ideology.
This shift in tone from mocking to menacing is a slippery one for young actors to pull off. But Matt Stevens as the amoral Knock and Will Schutz as his bewildered mentor hold tight to their characters, imposing conversational rhythms on Eric Bentley's arthritic translation. Jonathan Nichols, Tina Haglund and Bernadine Ann Tippet likewise do what they can to dispel the potential stuffiness of their dialogue, and the technical team conjures a vintage automobile inspiring some clever stage business for its chauffeur.
Clocking in at a tidy two hours, this City Lit production provides a timely reminder that what was in 1923 the stuff of speculative fancy may well have come to pass today. On the other hand, when we consider that the play's author lived to the ripe old age of 84, maybe his hero WAS onto something.