THEATER REVIEW : ‘Children’: When Art Becomes Political Provocation

“To play with images is to play with fire,” says Dominique Serrand playing the celebrated French film director Marcel Carne in “Children of Paradise: Shooting a Dream.” In the Theatre de la Jeune Lune production that opened Sunday at the La Jolla Playhouse, Serrand/Carne is talking about shooting his now legendary “Children of Paradise,” a film that sent ripples of excitement through the world when it was released in 1945.

Carne is making a general statement, presumably stemming from personal conviction. But when repeated by Serrand, who also directed this fictionalized account of the making of Carne’s film in Nazi-occupied France, it takes on hidden meaning.

The arts are always under siege in an occupied country. A line as seemingly innocent as “The one thing I really love is my freedom” (spoken by Serrand/Carne in the play and by French actress Arletty in the movie), becomes an act of political provocation.

“Children of Paradise” was the first film to come out of France after World War II. By chronicling the life of a celebrated 19th-Century mime, Baptiste Debureau; a less celebrated actor, Frederick Lemaitre, and Garance, the enchantress and free spirit whom they both loved, the film glorified the artists’ love for a freedom-loving France, even as it celebrated the role of art and artists at a time when the world was in dire need of romance.

But going beyond the film and its message, the people at the Minneapolis-based Theatre de la Jeune Lune, many of whom are French or trained in France, uncovered complexity in the facts surrounding the shooting of the movie: the insidious political byplay that spooked, infected and even sundered the lives of many of the artists involved.

It is this juxtaposition of context and meaning, of filmmaking within play-making that “Shooting a Dream” is about: that inextricable link between art and politics, and the constraints that inspire and bedevil them. Then and now.

Carne and his colleagues’ resistance to the repression of the Third Reich parallels artists’ recent resistance to congressional efforts at artistic censorship. “Shooting a Dream” is not a direct comparison so much as a cautionary tale.

Does it work? Fitfully. One would love to report this production as an unqualified epiphany, but after a roaring start that takes place outside the theater, in a faithful re-creation of the opening scenes of the film “Children of Paradise,” the play is slow to identify the various levels on which it operates and therefore slow to catch fire before blossoming into a far more satisfying experience in the second act.

Unlike most plays, this one requires homework. Acquaintance with the Carne film is a must. If the play is confusing at first, even when the film is familiar, it is hard to imagine following its developments without that basic frame of reference.

What we have is actors playing other actors playing roles in Carne’s film. Lots of room for confusion. The company makes every attempt to look, sound and behave like the actors in the movie, with mixed results.

Robert Rosen (as Jean-Louis Barrault playing Baptiste) and Charles Schuminski (as Marcel Herrand playing the murderous Jean-Francois Lacenaire) are the most successful, while Steven Epp captures the spirit if not the look of Pierre Brasseur as Lemaitre. But Felicity Jones is so self-consciously affected in her efforts to emulate Arletty’s unfettered charm as Garance that she undermines whatever she had set out to achieve.

The piece’s strengths lie in the elliptical writing (by Serrand, Epp, Jones and dramaturge Paul Walsh, with a little help from Carne and the poet Jacques Prevert, who wrote the “Paradise” screenplay), the music by Chandler Poling and the remarkable use Serrand makes of space, one-directional light (by Frederic Desbois) and scenography (by Vincent Gracieux, who also plays Prevert).

Always an intensely dramatic poet, Prevert lends the play its verve and romantic sweep. A bit of whimsy makes Francois Truffaut a low-level assistant whom Carne roundly chides for inefficiency. (Pure fiction: Born in 1932, Truffaut was hitting puberty at the time of the filming.)

Gracieux’s swirling set pieces, on which the film action takes place, allow us to follow the film-within-the-play from every angle, as though we had become the unblinking eye of the pursuing camera. While camera and sets execute their dance, Gracieux’s miniaturized set pieces stand watch around the edges of the stage like silent witnesses to the human comedy.

Effective? Yes. Clear? No. The sluggish first act treads a good deal of mud as it sorts out for us who is playing whom.

The piece soars by Act II, when we’ve finally figured out what the basic relationships are, and when the politics of the time have become enmeshed in the personal lives onstage. It becomes artfully theatricalized docu-fiction, enhanced fact, laced with barbs and shot through with tragedy and betrayal.

Serrand, who has a keen sense of the grand gesture, makes the most of it in this last half. “Shooting a Dream”--and you can read that in the literal as well as figurative sense--has deep roots in a European sensibility that sees theater as a synthesis of the collaborative imagination. But it could use some old-fashioned American pragmatism to map out the road.

“The essence of theater: a place of exile” is one definition we hear. Exotic and intriguing exile in this case. But don’t try it without the right equipment. See the movie.

* “Children of Paradise: Shooting a Dream,” La Jolla Playhouse, Mandell Weiss Theatre, La Jolla Village Drive and Torrey Pines Road, La Jolla. Tuesdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m.; Saturdays-Sundays, 2 p.m. Ends June 13. $25-$30; (619) 550-1010, TDD/Voice (619) 550-1030. Running time: 3 hours, 30 minutes.

Felicity Jones: Arletty/Garance

Robert Rosen: Jean-Louis Barrault/Baptiste Debureau

Steven Epp: Pierre Brasseur/Frederick Lemaitre

Charles Schuminski: Marcel Herrand/Jean-Francois Lacenaire

John Clark Donahue: Robert Le Vigan/Jericho/BBC voice

Sarah Corzatt: Maria Casares/Natalie

Dominique Serrand: Marcel Carne, the director

Vincent Gracieux: Jacques Prevert, the writer

Barbra Berlovitz Desbois: Francoise Rosay, an actress

Eric Jensen: Joseph Kosma, the composer

Luverne Seifert: Andre Paulve, the producer/Director of the Funambules

Michael Collins: Alexandre Trauner, the scenic designer/Vichy Censor/Prosecutor of the Purification/Constable/French Militia

Laura Esping: Mimi/French Militia

Danny Schmitz: Director of Photography/Priest

Aimee Jacobson: Key Grip/Gazelle

Rachel Wapnick: Sound Engineer

Ben Kernan: Francois

Nancy Hogetvedt: Wardrobe Mistress

Angie Lewis: Makeup Artist/Avril

Daniel Nelson: Stage Manager at the Funambules/Set Dresser/Journalist

Darcey Engen: Set Dresser

George Black: General Hans Soehring

A La Jolla Playhouse presentation of a Theatre de la Jeune Lune production, based on the work of Marcel Carne and Jacques Prevert. Director Dominique Serrand. Writers Steven Epp, Felicity Jones, Dominique Serrand, Paul Walsh. Dramaturge Paul Walsh. Scenography Vincent Gracieux. Lights Frederic Desbois. Costumes Trina Mrnak. Composer Chandler Poling. Additional composition and musical direction Eric Jensen. Violin and accordion Sarah Corzatt. Stage managers Aimee Jacobson, Tina Shackleford.