THEATER REVIEW : North Coast Rep Puts Punch in Polsky’s Tough Questions

“No fear can stand up to hunger, no patience can wear it out, disgust simply does not exist where hunger is; and as to superstition, beliefs, and what you call principles, they are less than chaff in a breeze.”

--From Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness”

“I can’t talk religion to a man with bodily hunger in his eyes.”

--From George Bernard Shaw’s “Man and Superman”

What will a man do to survive? In cases of dire need, will he lie? Will he steal? Will he torture? Will he kill? How far can he wander from the bounds of what we know to be civilization and still remain human?

Strip away the veneer of do’s and don’ts that are a part of daily unconscious living and there you are in the jungle with Kurtz in Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness,” saying, “The horror! The horror!”

Who are saints but people who maintain their internal standards even when suffering and death are the inevitable results?

There were few, if any, saints in the Donner party as playwright Abe Polsky shows so well in his play “Devour the Snow,” at the North Coast Repertory Theatre through May 22.

Almost 150 years ago, when the 89 settlers in that party were trapped in the snow on their way to California, they realized that the only way any of them would survive was by eating each other. When it was all over, each of the 47 survivors had done just that.

Within this realm of moral gray, were some deeds darker than others?

The settlers thought so. Consequently, they ostracized one of their members, Lewis Keseberg, who in turn brought a slander trial against those who accused him of murder and theft.

Out of these historical materials, Polsky fashioned a riveting courtroom drama that conjures up refrains of the Nuremberg Trials. Was Keseberg worse than the others? Did he go beyond what he strictly needed to do to survive? Did he commit the crime of actually liking human meat? Did he kill children to get it? Or was he used as a scapegoat, as a way of allowing the others to distance themselves from facing their own collective sins?

Robert Nuismer’s Keseberg plumbs these questions in all their harrowing complexity as his tormented eyes burn through a long, tall candle of pain that wastes away to a puddle of wax during the course of the show.

Nuismer’s very height plays off the skillfully askew set design by Bill Maass. As his gaunt frame paces on the burlap-covered stage that pours down in broken angles to the very edge of the first row, Barth Ballard’s light design plays up physical shadows that parallel the emotional and moral ones at stake. The careful costuming by Kathryn Gould similarly spotlights the threadbare surfaces of this threadbare soul, down to his big, beaten-down black boots.

Olive Blackistone’s direction elicits intensely detailed work from a fine ensemble cast, most of whom are called upon to confront their own mottled souls in the course of giving testimony.

While there are times when this morally charged drama does degenerate into melodramatic excess, Blackistone never loses her grip on the thread that keeps the tension taut and throbbing.

Standouts among the supporting cast are Susan Herder as Keseberg’s wife, Phillipine, persevering through the weight of what must be endured as a pariah’s mate, and Stuart McLean as Bill Foster, one of the accusers with his own secret shame.

Delivering solid performances in more simply defined parts, Cheryl Harvey projects tough purity as the steadfastly honest wife of the prosecutor, and Frederick Edmund renders up a larger-than-life vision of unabashed carnality as the gold-seeking scavenger, Fallon “Le Gros.”

In contrast, Kurt Reichert lacks command as the judge, John A. Sutter, while Tom Van Wagoner conveys such an untroubled image of solidity as the sheriff that it is hard to believe that he ever even witnessed the degradation of the camps. Michele Aimee Moore’s attempt to underplay her age as little Georgia Donner came across with an unintended eeriness reminiscent of “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?”

Laboring mightily with parts that in their grayness are microcosms of the moral journey Keseberg himself has to make, Quentin Proulx and Kevin O’Neill have their histrionic hands full as the Donner party “hero” and the noble-minded prosecutor, respectively.

At times, they deliver the goods with strength but do not succeed overall in projecting the self-loathing that might be of a lower wattage than Keseberg’s, but should be visible nonetheless.

With none without sin to cast stones, ultimately, Keseberg is not being tried by his fellow settlers but by the sternest judge of all--his own conscience.

What makes Polsky’s work so striking is that the examination does not end with Keseberg but, like the stage, extends to the audience itself. The question might be just suggested between the lines, but it is a resounding one all the same: What would you--or anyone else--have done in these circumstances? Devour your fellow man and live, or devour the snow and die?