Adapted by Karla Boos from Peter Ackroyd’s critically acclaimed novel by the same name (“A tour de force, a brilliant novel.” –USA Today), Chatterton ‘s intertwined stories take place over three centuries. For clarity, I will present these in a time-linear fashion, which may not be the way individual audiences member see them. More about that later.
The first element of the story is that of the mysterious and brilliant young poet Thomas Chatterton (played by Jonathan D. Visser) who lived during the 18th century and reportedly died of suicide in 1770 when he was only eighteen.
Tony Bingham and Jonathan Visser
The second is the true story of the painting depicting Chatterton’s death, painted in 1770 by the artist Henry Wallis (Martin Giles) with poet George Meredith (Tim McGeever) as the artist’s model for Chatterton.
The third is the famous aging novelist, Harriet Scrope (Helena Ruoti). Harriet’s first novel was very successful, but all her future inspirations were lost after it published. To carry on, she pirates plot lines from obscure books and reimagines the characters and dialogue.
The fourth is Charles Wychwood (Tony Bingham), the failed and doomed poet whom Harriet hires to ghostwrite her memoirs. Charles, however, is distracted by what he believes to be a hand-written manuscript by Chatterton which reveals he lived on long after faking his own death. This gave him the opportunity to write many of the most beautiful poems of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Works attributed to William Blake, William Wordsworth, and others, were in fact composed by Chatterton, a master forger, and Romantic genius.
Harriett learns of these manuscripts from Charles and makes it her single-minded “career revitalizing” mission to get possession of them and write a book about them. She believes it is the discovery of the century. It might be the one that will change the world of literature and poetry forever.
Helena Ruoti
The fifth centers on a painting Harriet discovers in Wychwood’s home. It is a likeness of what appears to be a much older Chatterton, dated 1802 and signed George Stead. Is this perhaps a confirmation of the authenticity of the manuscript?
Upon our check-in, at the Cathedral, each of us is given, along with the program, an identifier that divides the audience into three groups. We are introduced to the performance in the sanctuary, then split into our groups and led off into different directions to observe a central character in the narrative within multiple rooms of the cathedral. Our respective group’s routes are not in the same sequence, nor do they include the same stops. Therefore, each group has a different perspective on the overall story.
Gayle Pazerski and Tim McGeever
An audience reception is held in the Cathedral’s courtyard at 7:30. I suggest you take a few minutes to read the program before the 8 o’clock performance. You really have to pay close attention during the first several stops of the performance tour as you are initially watching without context, which will become more evident as the performance progresses.
During intermission, dinner is served family style in the parish hall. This is an excellent opportunity to discuss the performance with your table mates and fill in anything you might have missed. You do sit with your group so you won’t find out what the other groups might have seen that was different than your experience. For the second act, the groups are consolidated down to two, and the intertwined stories begin to come into focus.
On my performance tour, the first stop was Harriett’s home. She excessively consumes a clear adult beverage, which she drinks with a spoon, all the while carrying around a stuffed cat. Ruoti provides a compelling portrayal of the play’s most visibly complex character; a washed-up writer who lives in fear of being discovered for what she has become; a fake, a plagiarist and an alcoholic.
Tony Bingham’s Wychwood is the most sympathetic of the characters. He too is obsessed with the manuscript, and it’s potential to provide source material to rekindle his own failed career as a poet. We learn from his wife Vivian (Gayle Pazerski) that Wychwood knows he is sick, but Bingham doesn’t excessively play up his illness in his portrayal of Wychwood.
Jonathan D. Visser is physically imposing as the ever-present Chatterton. In the adaptation, we don’t get to know a lot about him, other than he has written some fabulous poetry and may or may not have faked his death.
Alan Stanford
Boos has assembled an impressive and very experienced cast with the principals as mentioned earlier joined by Ken Bolden, Martin L. Giles, Tim McGeever, Jeff Monahan, Gayle Pazerski, Alan Stanford, Tammy Tsai. Eamonn McElfresh and Charlie Russel alternate as the young Edward and Tom. My favorite stop on the performance tour was the stop in the Art Gallery with Stanford, Monahan, and McGeever discussing forgeries.
The design team of Stephanie Mayer Staley (Scenic Design), C. Todd Brown (Lighting Design) and Joe Seamans (Projection Design) have magically transformed Trinity Cathedral into multiple locations in London perfectly accompanied by Robert C.T. Steele’s Costume Design with Sound Design by District 5 Sound.
The logistics of moving individual groups of audience member around the Cathedral is executed flawlessly by tour guides and occasional performers Nico Bernstein, Kaitlin Kerr, and Zev Woskoff.
Quantum’s signature is adventurous productions that move you produced in a variety of locations around Pittsburgh. Trinity Cathedral is a beautiful choice for Chatterton with its Anglican roots and historical status. With the shows multi-dimensional story and potentially complex characters, the moves from room-to-room (with the associated break in concentration) hinder comprehension. Does the move between rooms outweigh the benefit of a typical theatre stage with changing scenery? My table mates for the intermission dinner had mixed opinions on this.
Some scenes challenge our assumptions as to what is real and what is imagined, as when Wychwood reads Chatterton’s manuscript aloud while the modern-day Phillip interacts with Chatterton’s “ghost.” But isn’t that the point of this whole experience: What is real and what is imagined? What is faked? Is anything authentic?
This production of Chatterton left me wanting to read the novel in order to get a deeper sense of the characters’ lives and motivations that this adaptation didn’t provide me within the allotted time frame of a live performance. To learn more about Chatterton in advance of seeing a performance you may wish to visit http://www.quantumtheatre.com/chatterton-book-club
What better than to challenge your mind’s imagination than with an evening of thought-provoking theatre accompanied by dinner in a historic venue? Quantum Theatre’s production of Chatterton runs now through October 28th at the Trinity Cathedral on 6th Avenue not far from the Benedum.
For tickets and more information click here.
Photos by Jason Snyder
Categories: Archived Reviews