Reversal of Fortunes

THEATER REVIEW: Philadelphia Theatre Co.'s Golden Age

by David Anthony Fox

Playwright Terrence McNally is a knowledgeable opera lover. His subject here, the 1835 première of I Puritani, Vincenzo Bellini's final masterpiece, was a momentous occasion, not least because its cast included four of the most glamorous opera stars ever.Bellini himself, who would die less than a year later at 33, was a dashing dandy famous for his love affairs. There's potential for a terrific play here.

Yet Golden Age, receiving its world première at Philadelphia Theatre Co., never really arrives. Some lovely moments near the end are too little, too late, coming after three hours of vulgar backstage farce (the jokes are mostly Pleistocene Age) and tawdry melodrama (not even Bronze Age). It doesn't help that Bellini is played unappealingly by Jeffrey Carlson, who looks like Julie Christie dressed as George Sand, and offers a postured, ultra-gay, ultra-contemporary spin on every line.

Golden Age is clearly designed for a specialized audience. If you don't know who Maria Malibran is, think twice before buying a ticket. But Puritani here is little more than a plot device to set up clichés of in-the-wings intrigue. McNally's previous opera plays, Master Class and The Lisbon Traviata, aren't my favorites, but they do capture the hypnotic joy of the art form.There's almost none of that here.

You should also be aware that this is a play with little actual music. One cast member, Marc Kudisch (funny, though he looks like a refugee from Orange County Choppers) vocalizes a little; otherwise the only singing is heard offstage, in what opera aficionados will instantly recognize as the 1953 EMI recording of Puritani with Maria Callas. It's a sensational performance — and so distinctive that we're constantly pulled out of the frame of McNally's play.

There's the problem. In the foreground, we're watching nine hardworking actors slogging through a lumpy comedy/drama that never coheres. Faintly audible in the background is supreme artistic genius. If only we could reverse the two.

Through Feb. 14, $46-$59, Suzanne Roberts Theatre, 480 S. Broad St., 215-985-0420, philadelphiatheatrecompany.org.