If you've had your fill of costume dramas, backstage comedies, and farces - which seem to be everywhere today - head out to Round House Theatre in the hinterlands of Bethesda for some corrective theater programming.   The most provocative play of the season, where issues of censorship are addressed factually and metaphorically, Fahrenheit 451 is a devastating commentary on the impact of technology, mass media, and political correctness.  The book is indeed a threatened cultural entity as you'll note with each closing store and any best sellers list, not to mention the continuing decline in SAT scores in reading and writing, now at an all time low.  

Ray Bradbury's dystopian novel (1953) has to be ranked right up there with Orwell's 1984 and Huxley's Brave New World, both of which it resembles, as a portent of a totalitarian, hedonistic state, where every thought and desire is monitored, controlled, and satiated.  It's also an amazingly prophetic work coming at a time when the dark side of technology and media was just a gleam in society's mind.  Bradbury's theatrical version of the late 1970s, on view to 10/8, takes account of the intervening years and François Truffaut's earlier film (1966).      

Sharon Ott's amped and high concept production, developed originally with her colleagues at the Savannah College of Art and Design, makes the most of what is available technologically to enhance, but not obscure, Bradbury's message, namely that we ourselves are responsible for the world we've created.  The design doesn't overwhelm, but seems to work collaboratively, almost interactively, with the creative team and cast as well as the audience. It's ironic that the media that is the subject of the critique should be a vehicle to express it.  Yet, Ms. Ott's production largely tamps it down, letting the story emerge.  

In this upside-down world, firemen unleash flames to burn books and defend public safety which must be protected against free thought.  The apple of discord is starting to gnaw at Guy Montag's life (played by the earnest David Bonham), both on the home front with his wife Mildred (a bipolar Liz Mamana) and in the workplace epitomized by Chief Beatty (chillingly portrayed by Jefferson A. Russell.  When our protagonist meets up with flower child and free thinker Clarisse (given a pixie's turn by Aurora Heimbach), a worm of doubt is planted which works its way to his core following a night call to the widow Hudson's place (played by Jean Harrison with Jean of Arc conviction). Montag's slow slippage into renegade status is later aided by Clarisse's granddad Faber (a conflicted intellectual and erstwhile handler John Lescault).       

Hal Tiné's functional and post-industrial set incorporates the geometrical in this calculated world with clashing diagonals, helical, and straight lines leading to infinity, and is strikingly lighted by Ruth Hutson from full intensity, to chiaroscuro, to stop-dead red. The music and sound of Steve LeGrand are neo-baroque, ominous, and programmed for submission, while Dawn Testa's costumes organize the characters into three classes: the firemen (and medics), the housewives, and the folk.  Projection Engineer, Erik Trester, wrangled a cadre of audio-visual designers, who give us an art-installation experience along with a fully realized "mechanical" hound, a projection of our deepest fears.   

I recently re-read the book and again watched the movie, before attending the show, and I found that they all pretty much have their strengths and limitations.  That is, while they have their moments - extremely powerful ones, whatever the medium - they also have stretches where the action is slow going.  (Even the novel at 165 pages is a slog at points.) Science Fiction is a genre mode and largely formulaic: it's a battle between good and evil, told in black and white where characters give way to ideas.  You don't read Sci-Fi for rounded characters. The book started out as a short story which was expanded and as such, feels like a forced march at times; the movie went for the look and feel of the novel while stripping away much of the language and building on (or creating) characters; and the play expanded specific characterizations - Beatty, chiefly, and Clarissa, somewhat, while creating backstories and plotlines for motivations. 

While the writer has given some of the best lines to Beatty, Mr. Russell takes them and the role for all that they are worth.  His Big Man-Big Picture monologue for the edification of the Montags has to be the most powerful 3-4 minute sequence I've seen on stage - the delivery, movement, and mannerisms are pitch-perfect and riveting.  Showing his further range, he follows this with an At Home scene that is as thoughtful as it is understated, a king in his chambers.  Though Beatty is the antagonist, Mr. Bradbury has saved up some telling prose for Faber, the fireman's mentor.  Mr. Lescault has crafted a memorable performance around a conflicted character that might represent a stand-in for all of us: it is a truism that most intellectuals die in their beds! The actor waffles, bucks-up, and then passes that cross he seems to be carrying to the next generation.  Ms. Mamana is excellent as the embodiment of the harried housewife, her poise, humor, and exasperation all in balance, precariously.          

Fahrenheit 451 feels like the last call for the Western Canon.  You're unlikely to see those titles together on any course or seminar reading list today.  I couldn't help wondering too, as I reflected on story unfolding in front of me, whether theater might meet a similar fate.  Whether the technological mash-ups, cutting of texts, and commissioned works for special interest groups - the dumbing-down process of the future - will create an audience where everything is possible and nothing matters.  Now that's a chilling proposition to consider.   

Additional cast: Katie Atkinson, Mark Hairston, Rachel Holt, B. Todd Johnston, and Paul Scanlan.

Applause meter: While the writer's adaptation, with some muddling in the conflicts, and uneven casting create some torpid stretches, the superlative design, substantive themes, and pockets of strong acting, including a tour-de-force performance from Mr. Russell, give this show a solid Recommended, 3 ½ hands (out of 5).

Runtime: 2:25/w intermission

Photo credits: Danisha Crosby

© John F. Glass, September 16, 2011