BURNING BRIGHT
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The story goes like this. Joe Saul wants a child in the worst way, but he and his much younger wife, Mordeen, can’t produce one. So Mordeen, who knows herself to be fertile, secretly conceives a child with the help of the hired hand, Victor. When the news is broken, Joe Saul is elated at the prospect of fatherhood, but Victor feels sorely used. Eventually he blackmails Mordeen, threatening to tell Joe Saul the truth if she doesn’t run away with him. Mordeen tries to reason with him; she sympathizes with Victor’s pain but she loves Joe Saul too much to leave him. When this bit of persuasion fails, Mordeen decides to kill Victor. It’s all for nothing anyway, since Joe Saul finds out from the doctor in the meantime that he never could have impregnated Mordeen. And, to top this off, Mordeen suddenly goes into labor and the baby is born dead. The play ends with Joe Saul professing his love for his dead son.
Sounds like a soap opera, doesn’t it? But then a plot synopsis of Desire Under the Elms would sound almost as dumb. The crucial difference is Eugene O’Neill knew how to write dialogue. Steinbeck didn’t; he was a prose writer. Strip away the power of Steinbeck’s narrative and you’re left with a script as gawky and contrived as it sounds here.
What’s unfortunate about this production is that Meryl Friedman, who both edited and directed the play, neglected to resolve any of Steinbeck’s theatrical problems. The production style–sort of expressionist, sort of symbolist–can only be described by that appropriately vague term “stylized.” Which is to say that the unnatural dialogue is played neither up nor down, that gestures are occasionally exaggerated, and that the cast turns in some shaky performances. Jeanne Dwan (Mordeen), for instance, gets stuck in a preposterous bathing suit trimmed with pink fur, trying to force down a horrified self-consciousness with a pretense of casual sexuality. Steve Totland (as Friend Ed, Joe Saul’s buddy) puts up a more decisive front, glossing over his character’s two-dimensionality with a likable stage presence. And Randy Colborn (Joe Saul) simply looks like he’s nervously awaiting further direction. Overall, it appears that not only did no one interpret this play, but no one knew how to get it from the page to the stage.
