An Imperfect but Intriguing Portrait

Thomas Eakins has been called America’s Rembrandt for his extraordinarily penetrating portraits, dramatic use of light and fascination with the body.

Had Eakins lived at the time of his follower, Andrew Wyeth, he may have enjoyed Wyeth’s kind of career. In a cruel trick of fate, though, Eakins worked in the 19th century, when his ideas on realistically depicting the body waged war with Victorians and romantics alike.

He’s probably an ideal subject for a drama, although Clista Townsend’s “Marks in the Water,” in its West Coast premiere at the Whitefire Theatre, is not quite the drama that Eakins fully deserves.

Still, there’s something wonderful going on here, as created by the new ensemble group the Ark Theatre Company. Ambitiously, it is staging Christopher Marlowe’s difficult “Edward II” in repertory with “Marks,” though no cast members are in both shows.

The rep facet is wonderful enough--it remains the rarest activity in local theater--but to dramatize a seminal yet unusual stage character like Eakins is truly adventurous.

Townsend, unlike many of her American playwriting brethren, is unafraid of exploring the country’s past, and in Eakins she means to find a gauge by which to measure how free we have become of the prudish Victorian restraints that long corseted the culture.

The larger idea and intent are pretty grand; it’s when you get down to the details that “Marks in the Water” gets a bit dicey. The play opts for a fluid time frame of 1890 to 1897, flashing forward and back when Eakins had already been forced to resign his teaching job at the Philadelphia Academy.

He was continuing his own master classes, informed by his avant-garde notions of painting from the nude, implementing photography and dissecting cadavers to better understand anatomy. Less known but most intriguing to Townsend, Eakins was also encouraging young women to study and master painting, making him a progressive in every way--which can get a person in a lot of trouble.

Eakins explains, in one of several awkwardly wordy monologues actor Wesley Harris struggles with, that he’s trying to understand human truth by understanding the human form, the body and face as a route to inner identity.

Yet the play shows, and strains at it, that this man of vision failed to see what was in front of his own eyes: that some of his female students were so flawed they could destroy people’s lives.

The time shifts attempt to provide exposition and context, but they tend only to confuse a basic matter. Eakins’ two nieces, the mentally unbalanced Ella (Amanda Thomas) and the quietly egotistical Maggie (Kari Wilton), can’t fully cope with each other or this new art world they’re thrust into.

So they act out in ways Eakins can’t control. He’s finally accused of having sex with Ella, and even though there’s never evidence for it and the play shows he’s an innocent pawn, the climate is ripe to condemn this body-obsessed artist.

The play is stuffed with a lot more material than this, however, and all of it--the personal drama, the time structure, the formalized talk and Harris’ unfortunately stiff performance--tend to weigh the evening down far more than necessary.

Less clutter would clearly make for a better, more bracing drama of ideas and emotions, but director David Bassuk handles it all with grace and even some visual poetry, as when he creates the illusion of Eakins’ triumphant late-career portraits emerging out of thin air.

Amid the heaviness, Tracie Lockwood’s turn as the funny-sexy Weda is just what’s needed, and Thomas and Wilton keep the dramatic excess effectively in check.

BE THERE

“Marks in the Water,” Whitefire Theatre, 13500 Ventura Blvd., Sherman Oaks. April 28, May 4, 6, 12, 18 and 20, 8 p.m.; April 30, May 7 and 14, 3 p.m. Ends May 20. $18. (323) 969-1707. Running time: 2 hours, 25 minutes.