Sparring Partners: McKellon And Mirren In “Dance Of Death”
By Jan Aaron

Don’t miss these two great British stars in top form, Ian McKellen and Helen Mirren as Edgar and Alice, in August Strindberg’s Dance of Death. However, be prepared for some surprises. Director Sean Mathias’ production at the Broadhurst brings out the light notes in this renowned dark drama. Written in 1901, Strindberg’s play is famous as the inspiration for such marriage-on-the-rocks dramas as Long Day’s Journey Into Night and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

While McKellen and Mirren always are thoroughly captivating to watch, this production punches up the play’s dark and deadly humor but rarely reveals it’s underlying anguish. The skilled actors draw the audience into their mordant world, verbally thrusting and parrying with great dexterity and wit. McKellen’s Edgar is also particularly well portrayed through intricate body language. In one stellar moment, he dances a jig falling perhaps dead to the floor. Alice’s “Hurrah!” here fosters laughter.

In a nutshell: Life has left these two behind; Edgar’s army captain has never been promoted from his post on a small isolated island where he despises everyone. “Bottom feeders,” is what he calls them in American playwright Richard Greenberg’s new hip adaptation. Alice, too, has shattered dreams. She was a young actress with a promising career before she married Edgar, who forced her to give it up. Now she constantly reminds her husband what she sacrificed for him. His answer? A protracted yawn. Throughout the first act, they approach their silver anniversary with new assaults to rub into old wounds. Their only visitor, Alice’s cousin Kurt, is played by David Strathairn who is too bland in the part.

Edgar’s other sparring partner is death, but he prefers to ignore it. His spiritual awakening at the end of the play, when he realizes that the answer to life’s disappointments and death’s inevitability is forgiveness not vengeance, is this production’s most moving moment. “Let’s move on,” he says, taking Alice’s hand.

Mathias’ plays up the drama’s spooky dimension with distant foghorns, mysterious mists and flickering candlelight. Santo Loquasto’s set is a tilting fortress with an overpowering white tower. The play’s last performance will be January 13, 2002. #

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