‘John Brown’s Body’ Evokes Plight of Nation Torn Apart

You can go home again, apparently.

“John Brown’s Body,” Charles Laughton’s stage adaptation of the epic Civil War poem by Stephen Vincent Benet, returned in a stirring revival to Santa Barbara’s Lobero Theatre, the site of its premiere performance in 1952.

This second installment in the Lobero Stage Company’s inaugural season is far more substantial than the opener, the lavishly hollow “Death Takes a Holiday”--ironically, with substantially pared-down production values.

Peter Hunt’s deceptively simple staging relies on three principal performers--Linda Purl, Duncan Regehr and David Naughton, who read passages selected by Laughton from more than 300 pages of verse in Benet’s tapestry of interwoven lives caught up in the convulsive struggle to shape the conscience and future of America.

Benet’s portraits range from larger-than-life movers and shakers to common folk, evoking a heartbreaking sense of ruin as they bid farewell to a social order they’ve taken for granted. Augmenting their recitations with characterizations sketched through diction and bearing, the actors transform reading into performance.

Regehr is particularly impressive in this regard, bending cadences to accommodate the sonorous meditations of Abraham Lincoln agonizing over his inability to fathom God’s will at this historic crossroads. He contrasts Lincoln’s soul-searching with the clipped, pragmatic formality of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, as well as the visionary zeal of John Brown, whose lethal attack on Harper’s Ferry crystallized the moral crisis past the point of no return.

Purl brings heroic stature and masterfully shaded levels of conflict to characters like Mary Lou Wingate, a plantation matriarch fiercely clinging to a status quo of Southern gentility--and slavery--despite her ability to visualize a perfect world of racial equality. She’s just as effective in her depiction of a Southern farm girl who becomes enamored of--and impregnated by--Naughton’s stray Union foot soldier.

At times overly respectful of the verse, Naughton takes fewer risks, opting for carefully metered readings at the expense of character. His impassioned delivery is compelling nonetheless, thanks to the power of Benet’s language.

A 24-piece chorus supplies vocal accompaniment under the musical supervision of Arthur B. Rubinstein, who contributed additional music to Walter Schumann’s original score. Using a combination of song, recitation and sound effects, the chorus creates moods spanning transcendental spirituality to gritty realism. In one startlingly effective sequence, the passing greetings of prisoners being exchanged at sea give haunting voice to the ambivalent enmity and camaraderie of brothers torn asunder.

Most powerful of all is Benet’s innate sympathy for all the participants, however misguided, resulting in a human tragedy that overshadows all moral debate. To feel its full impact, however, audiences must calibrate their expectations to a form of theatrical presentation that actively engages the imagination, with minimal reliance on traditional stagecraft. The effect is closer to Ken Burns’ television documentary “The Civil War” than to a conventional play--not only because of the works’ shared subject, but also in their evocation of a sweeping panorama through particularized fragments brought so eloquently to life.

* “John Brown’s Body,” Lobero Theatre, 33 E. Canon Perdido St., Santa Barbara. Wednesdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays and May 3, 2 p.m. Ends May 4. $18-$31. (805) 963-0761. Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes.