Theatre Review : Cal Rep Saves Durrenmatt’s Deceit-Filled ‘Marriage’

Can this marriage be saved? Both partners poisoned their previous spouses--who were having an affair with each other. Now the survivors have wed for the mutual guilt and the blackmail.

The honeymoon is over before it begins in “The Marriage of Mr. Mississippi,” Friedrich Durrenmatt’s mordant, mildly long-winded 1952 comedy. Set in a nameless European country, “Mr. Mississippi”--like Durrenmatt’s later and greater “The Visit”--provides a penetrating glance into the political and moral chaos of the postwar world. And Cal Rep in Long Beach gives it a smart and snappy revival, albeit on a small stage that necessitates a reduced scenic scale.

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Before the play begins, three men in raincoats and armbands ominously survey the audience, then execute the first character who appears onstage. But the dead man, Saint-Claude (John Shepard), nonetheless begins to address us directly, narrating a flashback.

Going back five years, we see how Mr. Mississippi (Richard Perloff) confronted the ostensibly grieving Anastasia (Dorothy A. Gallagher) at her home and presented enough evidence of their respective crimes that she reluctantly agreed to marry him within half an hour. This meeting is as crisply written and performed as a farcical scene out of Joe Orton.

Mississippi isn’t a typical wife-killer. He is the country’s public prosecutor, responsible for obtaining death penalties for hundreds of the accused. He sternly interprets biblical law as well as his country’s. Confronted with such a dominating individual, Anastasia feels cornered into marriage.

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But she doesn’t necessarily feel compelled to remain faithful. Anastasia exploits every passing moment. Equally opportunistic is her lover Diego, the minister of justice (Jeff Paul). Smelling revolution in the air, Diego advises Mississippi to lighten up on the executions.

The would-be leader of the revolution is the narrator Saint-Claude, who returned to this country on behalf of Communism but isn’t quite as orthodox as he seems. An old acquaintance of Mississippi, he harbors inflammatory secrets from their past.

Set against all of this deception and artifice is one naive, good-hearted man, Count Ubelohe (Armando Jose Duran), who fled the country after he realized that Anastasia used a drug he gave her to poison her first husband. He returns to stake his claim on her affections.

He also uses his first big scene to speak directly to the audience, railing against the playwright for making him--the play’s one potential hero--so ridiculous.

Director Ronald Alan-Lindblom drew some superlative performances, with Gallagher especially majestic as the femme fatale and Duran sadly comic as the put-upon count--the only character who doesn’t look handsome in Naomi Yoshida Rodriguez’s costumes.

* “The Marriage of Mr. Mississippi,” Cal Rep, campus of Cal State Long Beach, between 7th Street and West Campus Drive, Wednesdays, 6 p.m.; Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; this Saturday only, 2 p.m. matinee. Ends April 13. $15. (310) 985-7000 or (310) 985-5526. Running time: 2 hours, 35 minutes.