October 7-13, 2004

theater

Battle-Weary

by David Anthony Fox

In Tom Stoppard's Night And Day, the elegant estate of Geoffrey Carson, a British mining magnate living in Africa, becomes temporary home to three British journalists: Dick Wagner, brashly sexy and accustomed to star status; George Guthrie, a skittish photographer; and young Jacob Milne, fresh from a provincial English paper and new to the international scene.

What brings Wagner, Guthrie and Milne to Carson's place is not one thing but three: there is a looming civil war; Carson (who has reasons of his own to stay current on the political scene) owns what seems to be the only working telex machine for miles around; and at least two of the journalists are drawn to Ruth Carson, the alluring wife and chatelaine who's contemplating some action on the side.

As the single telex would suggest, Night And Day is an older Stoppard play—from 1978—and is relatively straightforward. Still, those three plotlines—the war, the ups and downs of journalism and adulterous romance—are interwoven elegantly. In the end, though, not one of the plots is compelling.

The African war least of all. Stoppard creates a mythical country (Kambabwe), though the situation—a thuggish president—is common. Too common, in fact—it seems now a vaguely racist cliche, and in any case we never know enough about the situation to get attached.

Ruth, in all her complexity, should by rights be the principal story. She's not an easy person to know but she's intriguing: bitchy, funny, self-centered but charismatic. Stoppard sometimes lets her break the frame of the play and speak directly to the audience. Unfortunately, director Jiri Zizka has awkwardly staged Ruth's asides, and actress Carla Harting gives a heavy-handed, charmless performance.

So it's the journalism plot we hang on, and here Stoppard is at his best. There are some zingy moments among the three men, and we enjoy the ups and downs of their fortunes. Yet ultimately this too feels cliched. It's no surprise that one of these men won't return from the battlefront, and a final speech praising journalists because "information is light" is amazingly naive. The problem is not simply that Night And Day is a period piece (which it absolutely is), but that Stoppard hasn't given us fully realized characters.

The Wilma's production is handsome, and Jiri Zizka directs fluently, though he never quite nails the complicated tone (part sincere play of ideas, part British sex farce). Among the mostly able cast, Richard Sheridan Willis (Wagner) and especially Michael Rudko (Geoffrey) stand out.

NIGHT AND DAY Through Oct. 31, Wilma Theater, 265 S. Broad St., 215-546-7824