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written by Ferenc Molnár, directed by László Marton

Soulpepper Theatre Company, Young Centre, Toronto

September 17-October 17, 2009

"The Interplay’s the Thing"

Soulpepper has been playing a key role in Toronto’s theatrical life in refamiliarizing audiences with the works of Hungarian playwright Ferenc Molnár.  In 1999 and 2003 they gave is “The Play’s the Thing” (1926), followed by “Olympia” (1928) in 2005 and now, one of his greatest comedies, “The Guardsman” (1910) in a translation by Frank Marcus.  The play has enjoyed enormous success in English in the production with Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne on Broadway in 1924 and with Brian Bedford and Maggie Smith at Stratford in 1977.   Here, though helmed by Hungarian director László Marton, who has guided Soulpepper to success in Chekhov and in its first Molnár, this production of “The Guardsman” simply refuses to catch fire.

Like most of Molnár’s plays, this comedy is based on the interplay of reality and illusion.  Nandor, a famous actor, is married to Ilona, a famous actress.  Before he married her, Ilona had the reputation for casting off each of her lovers after the period of six months.  Now that they have been married for six months, Nandor is becoming increasingly worried that Ilona, though she has sworn to remain faithful, may be about to take a lover.  To test her Nandor decides to disguise himself has a dashing guardsman, to attract his wife’s attention and to attempt to seduce her.  If she rejects the advances of the guardsman, he will know Ilona is faithful,  If he gives in to the guardsman, he will ask for a divorce.  

Nandor is renowned as the master of a thousand voices and disguises.  The success of his plan depends on the impenetrability of his disguise.  Molnár deliberately gives us conflicting views of this.  Bela, Nandor and Ilona’s best friend, recognizes him immediately.  Liza, the new maid, does not.  Soulpepper describes the play as a “timeless cat-and-mouse comedy” between husband and wife.  Indeed, that’s exactly what it should be because that’s where the humour lies.  “Who knows what when?” and “Who is pretending to know what when?” is what it is all about.  Strangely enough, however, that is not how Marton has directed it.

He has directed it as a stolid realistic play whereas it should be as light as a soufflé.  For the play truly to be a cat-and-mouse game we have to see that both husband and wife are toying with each other.  Ilona can use her pose of feigned ignorance to frustrate her husband just as he tries to use his disguise to tempt her.  What Marton fails to establish is the actorliness of both characters.  Think of the theatrical families in Noel Coward’s “Hay Fever” (1924), George S, Kaufman and Edna Ferber’s “The Royal Family” (1927) or, indeed, of the theatre couple of Molnár’s own “The Play’s the Thing”, and you see that actors are shown as always acting whether on stage of not.  Marton suppresses this part of the exposition so that Ilona and Nandor off-stage seem so dull that it is difficult to view them as actors at all.  Without setting this up, Ilona’s fantasy and Nandor’s plan appear as bizarre quirks rather than expressions of people whose vocation is making fantasies real.  Marton wants the revelation at the end to be a surprise, but to do that he has to suppress the question “Does she know or not?” that should run through the action and actuate the comedy. 

Given this odd approach, the main actors do not shine as they should.  Kristen Thomson is directed to remain enigmatic throughout, and so she is, without any flickers of recognition or secret signs of scorn or amusement.  The trouble is that this makes her seem the opposite of vivacious and intelligent.  Albert Schultz’s Nandor is so grumpy when we first meet him it wouldn’t be surprising if his new wife started looking elsewhere.  At the same time, while he does change his change his voice for the role, his Guardsman is so stiff, it’s hard to see him having the passions he professes or fulfilling his wife’s romantic ideal.  

As the couple’s confidant Bela, Diego Matamoros plays essentially the same raisonneur figure he did in “The Play’s the Thing”, although his rationality doesn't have as much irrationality to contrast with as it did with the theatre couple in “The Play’s the Thing”.  Dawn Greenhalgh is very funny as Ilona’s “Mother” (who is her servant, not her mother), Michael Simpson is a bit too much as the Creditor and Diana Donnelly not quite enough as the new maid Liza.  It is great to see Jennifer Phipps on stage even in the tiny role of the Usherette.

Camellia Koo’s provides a non-realistic Art Nouveau set for Nandor and Ilona’s flat, with elaborate costumes on stands lit behind the cut-out walls.  Judith Bowden’s costumes capture the glamour of Art Nouveau, but she should design floor-length gowns for Ilona in such a way that Thomson can easily walk forward in them on a flat surface rather than having to pick up the front every time.  This constant fussiness undercuts Thomson’s attempts at graceful movement.     

In the end one admires Molnár’s play and recognizes what fun it could be in other hands.  It should sparkle and fizz  The present production is more like flat champagne.  

©Christopher Hoile

Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive.

Photo: Kristen Thomson and Albert Schultz. ©Cylla von Tiedemann.