Victor Spoils
There are many reasons to revive An Empty Plate in the Cafè du Grand Boeuf, but the Arden's new revival misses the most important one.
There are many good reasons to revive Michael Hollinger's An Empty Plate in the Café du Grand Boeuf, but the Arden's new revival misses the most important one.
The local playwright's hot right now, with the Off-Broadway success of last season's magnificent Opus, but his newest work (with composer Michael Ogborn) isn't ready, and this is the Arden's 20th year, so why not look back fondly with Hollinger's first full-length play?
Director Whit MacLaughlin's handsome production is evidence that the Arden's resources have grown considerably since 1994. Scenic designer Donald Eastman's beautiful restaurant and Rosemarie McKelvey's ideal 1961 costumes compliment the witty staging early on, as we meet a staff devoted solely to one man's whims. Ian Merrill Peakes' exacting Claude leads wife Mimi (Mary McCool), chef Gaston (Richard Ruiz) and new waiter Antoine (James William Ijames) in elaborate preparations for "Monsieur" and his companion, "Mademoiselle." But when the owner finally arrives, saying "call me Victor" and refusing to eat, those who live only to serve him face an impossible situation — and so does the Arden.
What hurt in 1994 was the lack of a suitable Victor, a rich and powerful journalist devoted to (and meant to resemble) Ernest Hemingway. George Wendt — yes, Norm of Cheers — wasn't the right actor in the play's brief 2000 New York run, and the much more capable Douglas Rees doesn't prove a good choice now.
Hollinger superbly crafts the staff's stories — all nurse unresolved longings — but they're merely satellites spinning around a dull center. Rees fails to convince as the gruff, decisive Victor, determined to starve to death in his restaurant. Claude and the staff challenge him with "a feast of adjectives and adverbs," elaborately describing a seven-course meal to tempt him to live (don't see this show on an empty stomach). When Victor's story emerges, the pieces fit together cleverly with quotations from Hemingway, but his re-creation of a bullfight unfolds as silly and awkward.
The final surprise cuts through the production's sentimentality, but lacks the tragic irony Hollinger intends because we never believe in the depths of Victor's despair, the heights of his grandeur, or the poignancy of his love for "Mademoiselle" (Mikaela Kafka). This revival underscores the play's laughs, but its potential power escapes again.
An Empty Plate in the CafÉ du Grand Boeuf
Through Dec. 9Arden Theatre Co.,40 N. Second St., 215-922-1122, ardentheatre.org
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