WENCESLAS SQUARE
The frame of the play centers around a narrator who tells the story of an adventure in Czechoslovakia in his younger days. The narrator portrays all the men that his younger self meets. This younger self, Dooley, is a student at a small midwestern college who befriends a rowdy and wild professor of theater. The professor, Vince Corey, had been in Czechoslovakia during the time of the invasion and watched the blossoming of the theater community as the artists responded to the crisis. It affected him so much that he wrote a book about his experiences, based on a series of interviews. Vince is now returning to Czechoslovakia–five years later, book completed and ready for publication–to verify those interviews and find out what has happened to the artists since then. His book, he hopes, will take him out of the dull college job he’s in, lift him to exalted heights of theater scholarship, and let him live the life he wants. He asks Dooley to accompany him and take pictures for the book.
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Gary Houston’s characterization of Vince Corey, the wild and woolly professor, is both familiar and charming. He is a typical wisecracking, witty extrovert, who always lives for the moment. For Houston’s Vince, this delightful characteristic is also his fatal flaw as he steadfastly refuses to acknowledge the obvious changes around him. Houston has some trouble with Vince’s final moments, but the rest of his performance is so thoroughly engaging that it doesn’t matter much.
I have a feeling that Wenceslas Square was a bit more passionate the first time around, and people who saw that production may be disappointed by Mula’s temperate approach. Speaking as a first-timer, though, I can only say that I’m glad to get a chance to see this loving production of an interesting play from a playwright who had far too short a life.
