"Pentecost" gets high marks

STORRS — If plays were given points for degree of difficulty, as in Olympic gymnastic competitions, for example, playwright David Edgar’s play “Pentecost” would be awarded the highest marks.
This tour-de-force production, directed with dexterity and authority by Gary M. English, head of UConn’s Department of Dramatic Arts and artistic director of Connecticut Repertory Theatre, is a complex and intense play requiring no less than your full and undivided focus
But it is worth the investment.
Set in an unspecified eastern European country, formerly under communist rule, a local curator, Gabriella Pecs, played by Heddy Lahmann, discovers what could be a pre-Renaissance fresco behind a brick façade in a dilapidated graffiti-ridden church, which could be a major find for the art world.
She convinces Dr. Oliver Davenport, a visiting art historian, played by Nicholas Dillenburg, of the possibility of its significant value, and the search for the painting’s provenance begins.
Davenport playfully, and at times patronizingly, teases Gabriella for her broken English, when she uses such words as “de-headed” for “beheaded,” “mending cottage” instead of “repairing a cottage.”
Without question, this intellectual play demands its audience to pay attention. There are no less than eight languages spoken among the 24 characters, most times with translations, but occasionally without.
In this play, written in 1994, language and words are the thing, with the implications of a world in flux, including power, treachery, violence, religion, and the nature of communication and connections are all closely scrutinized.
At one point when numerous languages converge, a character suggests: “We can all be good Europeans and speak in American.”
But because of the extreme emphasis on language and ideas, something has to give, and what does is an emotional connection with the audience to the characters.
They become more representatives and archetypes of their homelands and religious backgrounds, whether a Kurd refugee, an African, Serbian or Bosnia, a tourist, or a Muslim, Christian or Jew.
The Jewish-American art history consultant from Columbia University, Leo Katz, played with a terrific combination of irreverent confidence by Christopher Hirsh, is the most complex character in the play. He was also the easiest to understand, with no foreign accent to slow him down.
Most of the multitudinous accents were finely wrought, with the exception of Dillenburg, whose English accent drifted arbitrarily.
The single large set of the interior of a church by Tina Louise Jones was sturdy and appropriately decrepit, but the fresco, which may or may not have been painted by the Italian pre-renaissance painter Giotto, uncovered beneath a layer of brick, was beautifully realized.
The reference to Giotto was far from arbitrary, since it was the painter Giotto who first took the quantum leap from the Byzantinian 2-dimentional painting style to a 3-dimentional, secular and more realistic style — laying the ground work the Italian Renaissance, which included such artists as Leonardo Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Rafael and beyond.
There is one brief scene with non-gratuitous male nudity that should be noted for those who might find that offensive.
Near the end of the play, one of the characters said to the another: “We are the sum of all the people who have invaded us,” which is as good as saying, “we are all in this together.”

Pentecost

Three Stars

Theater: Connecticut Repertory Theatre

Location: Harriet S. Jorgensen Theatre, (lower Jorgensen) 132 Hillside Rd., Storrs.

Production: By David Edgar. Directed by Gary M. English. Scenic design by Tina Louise Jones. Lighting design by Dan Rousseau. Costume design by Lucy Brown. Sound design by Wilson Tenneman. Dialect and language direction by Dudley Knight.

Running time: 2 ½ hours with one 15-minute intermission.

Show Times: Wednesday and Thursday Dec. 5 and 6 at 7:30 p.m., and Friday Dec. 7 at 8 p.m.

Tickets: General admission $25 to $28 and $11 to $18 for UConn students. Call 486-4266 or visit their website at www.crt.uconn.edu.

ACTOR...CHARACTER

Nicholas Dillenburg...Oliver Davenport
Heddy Lahmann...Gabriella Pecs
Christopher Hirsh...Leo Katz
Michael Solomon...Grigori Kolorenko
Dudley Knight...Father Sergei Bojovic
Luke Daniels...Father Petr Karolyi
Karen Ryker...Anna Jedlikova
Robert McDonald...Nico
Joseph Gallina...Swedish Man, Raif
Sarah Murdoch...Teenage Girl, Fatima
Peter Mutino...First Soldier
Noah Weintraub...Second Soldier; Derek; Commando
Jeremy Garhinkel...Pusbas
Daniel Sheridan...Michail Czaba
Meghan O'Leary...Czaba’s Secretary, Toni Newsome
Joseph Cisternelli...Restorer, Commando
Zachary Kamin...Restorer, Commando
Quinn Uniacke...Police Woman, Marina
Aaron Johnson...Antonio
Michael Hanson...Abdul
Lauretta Pope...Yasmin
Hillary Leigh Parker...Amira
Kate Shine...Tunu
Alexandra Petrova-Emisti...Cleopatra