MBS Productions’ Dante: Inferno
Adapted for the stage by Alejandro de la Costa
Translated by Mark-Brian Sonna
“Why bother building a set when I’ve got good actors?” Mark Brian-Sonna has a unique creative vision that propels him into unusual stage ventures and inspires him to use his theatre casts in unexpected ways. His current production at Addison’s intimate Stone Cottage, Dante: Inferno, is a perfect illustration.
Based on the philosophically and theologically dense text of the first Canto of Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy as translated by Anthony Esolen, this excerpt of the narrative springs as much to life through the fantastical gyrations and vocal emanations of his six ensemble players as it does from the recitative presentations of his main characters portrayed by Frances Munoz as Vergil and Nicholas Berkley as Dante, himself. Easy to expect that so “heady” a text would end up static and wordy, probably why so few theatrical companies would take on this challenging project. Instead, MBS Productions’ staging is hugely animated, almost entirely visceral.
On a close to bare stage, his ensemble players create both the setting and the victims suffering thereon, in the numerous levels of Hell so meticulously detailed by Dante in his classic tome. The script requires the ensemble to portray over one hundred characters; details of each condemned soul’s life are irrelevant compared to the impact of the emotional hell experienced in total. It’s relentless, non-stop. The combined overwhelming jumbled chaos of revulsion, titillation and fascination mesmerizes the audience as if they stood contemplating Hieronymous Bosch’s famous grotesque panels for hours on end. The ensemble includes: Grisel Cambiasso, Joshua Scott Hancock, Ivan Jones, Miranda Sterling, Sarahlynn Svoboda, and Kevin Wikersham. Even after the ensemble took their bows and exited at the performance’s conclusion the night I attended, the audience sat frozen completely silent for several minutes, just absorbing the emotional impact. Each actor creates intense tortured memorable moments, yet they flow together in an ever-tightening miasma of aching flesh and sound. It’s the best part of the performance.
Given the flat, recitation style of Vergil and Dante as they declaim the poet’s words directly, respectfully, from his text, both portrayals lack the energy and charisma to balance the exquisite physical harmony created by the ensemble. The writer’s words come across wooden and archaic, so theoretical and conceptual they become ephemeral. How does one presume to re-write Dante? Reflecting on the creative juices of both Dante and Mark Brian-Sonna, I wished a time machine existed to unite them as collaborators in staging the work.
Go for the unique staging and the full-blown Hell created by the ensemble. There isn’t a plot per-se, or anything resembling conventional characterization. No neatly tied up resolution. No, the boy doesn’t get the girl. It may be the only staging of part of this universally classic work you’ll encounter in your lifetime. It’s worth the trip to hell and back.
Dante: Inferno runs through May 3, 2008.
Tickets: http://danteinferno.net/tickets.html, or call 214-477-4942
From Wikipedia:
The Divine Comedy written by Dante Alighieri between 1308 and his death in 1321, is widely considered the central epic poem of Italian literature, and is seen as one of the greatest works of world literature. The poem’s imaginative vision of the Christian afterlife is a culmination of the medieval world-view as it had developed in the Western Church. It helped establish the Tuscan dialect in which it is written as the Italian standard. The first canto is 14,000 lines long.
Alexandra Bonifield is a 2008 NEA Annenberg Fellow in theatre criticism.
