STAGE REVIEW : UCSD’S REVIVAL OF ‘DISPUTE’ A FEAST OF IDEAS

A man and a woman, elegantly dressed, sit in front of the stage, at opposite ends, facing each other, arguing in soft, hardly discernible tones as the members of the audience gather, chattering among themselves.

The audience glances uneasily at the figures, wondering if the play has begun. The eyes of the man and the woman pan critically over the audience as they continue their conversation. Still, the audience talks as the lights dim slightly and come up again, and the voices of the couple grow slightly louder. Finally, as if obeying an unspoken signal, the audience becomes silent. What are the two talking about? Nothing less than this: Which sex is the more trustworthy? Was it man or woman who committed the first infidelity?

These are the questions at the heart of “The Dispute,” a production of the UC San Diego drama department, playing at the Mandell Weiss Center for the Performing Arts through Saturday.

Guest artist Ann Bogart, responsible for last year’s critically acclaimed “1951,” has here crafted and directed an inventive, provoking and thoroughly modern version of this 1744 farce by Pierre Marivaux, a playwright and author much admired by Jean Jacques Rousseau for his ideas about natural versus civilized man.

Bogart expanded the original play by interweaving some of Marivaux’s essays with his drama. The result is at times structurally bumpy with patches of confusion, but the compensation is a bustling theater of ideas. The tone is set right from the beginning when the argument that starts before the play implies an argument that has been going on since the dawn of man.

The main disputants are a prince and his lovely friend, Hermaine. Just when it seems as if their argument is going nowhere, the prince announces that he has a way of settling it. Eighteen years before (this has evidently been on his mind for some time), two male babies and two female babies were brought up separately, innocent of exposure to each other or anyone else but their two caretakers.

The prince and Hermaine watch as the first couple is brought together. Egle and Azor are filled with wonder at the sight of one another. They immediately fall in love, but there’s an interesting difference between them. When they are offered the choice between being given pictures of one another or pictures of themselves, Azor, the man, wants a picture of Egle, but Egle chooses a picture of herself--which turns out to be a mirror.

Azor, then, is enraptured with Egle’s charms, while Egle is enraptured with Azor’s rapture over her.

Inevitably, complications arise when the second couple is brought into the picture and the strength of their love is pitted against temptation on both sides.

The play’s greatest fault is that it does not really come alive until Egle is introduced. Although the first part of the dispute is well-staged, with beautifully dressed men and women miming the prince and Hermaine’s theses about sex and romance, the nature of the arguments and therefore the movement of the show is not clearly spelled out until just before the play within the play begins.

Theresa McCarthy is a delightful Egle. One can actually sympathize with the ingenuous narcissism of this spritely, high-spirited, half-primitive/half-Valley Girl.

Matthew Wright’s Azor complements her perfectly as a long, lanky, innocent bumpkin type. In contrast, Giovanni Felicioni as Mesrin, Azor’s friend and then rival, radiates a powerful sexual energy with his heavy-lidded eyes that starts the play steaming.

Carolyn Sweeney and Deryl Caitlyn play Hermaine and the Prince with great elegance, although Caitlyn could use a bit more hauteur. Sweeney plays her part with an aristocracy that seems to outrank him.

The ensemble offers strong, solid support.

Scenic designer Victoria Petrovich has come up with yet another striking set. In contrast to the delicately wrought naturalness of her last offering, “Misalliance,” she has crafted a mansion with an Art Deco feel. There are walls jutting out in a variety of directions, a fountain framed by extravagantly exotic flowers, and plexiglass windows behind which members of the prince’s court stand on various levels to watch the experiment. The stage slopes downward, giving one the sense that the life could spill out into the audience at any moment.

Brenda Barr does a graceful job lighting this big, challenging set, and Steven Erb and Michael S. Roth harmonize the mood with the sound. Lori S. Catlin’s costumes are sumptuous when it comes to the members of the court and attractive, if hokey, when it comes to the primitives. How interesting that girls who never had mirrors would think of putting ribbons in their hair.

Theater is at its most exciting when voices are created or revived that can speak across the centuries. By reviving and modernizing “The Dispute,” a work little-known in this country, Bogart has performed a valuable service. While the conclusions of the debate are likely to stimulate more arguments than answers, it should be appreciated that something is being offered that is meaty enough to argue with.

“THE DISPUTE”

By Pierre Marivaux. Translated by Daniel Gerould. Additional translations by Nancy Francois. Director is Anne Bogart. Music by Michael S. Roth. Set by Victoria Petrovich. Costumes by Lori S. Catlin. Lights by Brenda Berry. Sound by Steven Erb and Michael S. Roth. Dramaturg is Jonathan Field. Stage manager is Linda M. Funsten. With Ivan G’Vera, Carolyn Sweeney, Deryl Caitlyn, Craig Green, Regina Byrd Smith, Theresa McCarthy, Matthew Wright, Monica Buckley, Giovanni Felicioni, Elizabeth Backenstow, John Haydon Godfrey, Pete Collison, David Gerry, Susan Goldman, Helene Goode, Andrea Harmon, Sheila Macdougall, Robert Owens, Reed Scudder, Michael A. Trippe and Lisa Kim Welti. Musicians are Linda Cummiskey and John Sebastian Winston. At 8 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday. At UCSD’s Mandell Weiss Center for the Performing Arts, San Diego.