THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, October 2, 1996 TAG: 9610010119
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 11 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Theater Review
SOURCE: Montague Gammon III
LENGTH: 73 lines
The two actors who present the tale of ``Brendan's Journey'' at Regent University certainly get a thorough workout in the course of this new play.
They strain with the exertion of launching a boat, and with the effort of beaching it. They strain with famine and fatigue. They strain while they talk about faith, and about love and lust. They strain when they fight a great fish. They strain at bodily functions. They strain over oars. They strain over theology.
Their characters' whole lives seem compounded of strain, their eyes bugged out and their mouths twisted. Such continual stress is perhaps appropriate when discussing human existence in the 6th century A.D., but it does impart to all their actions a consistency bordering on sameness.
St. Brendan is also known as Brendan Finnloag, after his father's name or as Brendan the navigator. He was an Irish monk who may have sailed to North America some 450 years before Leif Ericson is supposed to have made a similar journey around 1000 A.D. Either of these two clearly makes Columbus look like a Johnny-come-lately.
Playwright and director Gillette Elvgren's story takes Brendan from his adoption by the early Church in infancy, through his youth in a monastery and his famous voyage, to his death after returning to Ireland.
Hunter Barnes is cast as Brendan and Mark Zillges as his friend, rival, servant and sidekick Birt Fenn. Each also plays secondary parts. Zillges steps into the roles of a former Druid turned Christian bishop, of a lusty nun, of the Briton ``King'' Arthur and of Brendan's sister. Barnes also takes the role of the sister who is loved by both men and plays at least once at being Birt.
Elvgren uses the not uncommon technique of admitting from the play's outset that these are two actors relating a story. Thus the show begins with Birt sipping from a Thermos as a stagehand sweeps around him. Elvgren does not introduce the pair as moderns, but rather as Birt and Brendan come together to tell their story.
Thus they can interchange roles, use a slide projector, smoke a cigarette and argue about what should be told or how to tell it. All this intermingling of past and present does not impede the story in any way. It is less clear whether the numerous anachronistic references to potatoes, which didn't travel from America to Europe until after Columbus, are part and parcel of this same technique or are simply an historical oversight.
Barnes has been frequently and wisely cast as a zealot, putting his ascetic looks and wide, wild-eyed expressions to good use portraying the extremes of religious fervor. His performance as Brendan is no exception. This is a man so certain of his faith that he refuses to let his crew row their becalmed boat. God will provide both motive power and direction, he maintains.
The burly Zillges provides a good contrast to Barnes' lean and hungry look. His approach is less intense than Barnes' and more given to broad comedy. The audience is left with the impression that Birt's pragmatism and his knowledge of celestial navigation, may have had as much to do with Brendan's success as did the monk's faith in heavenly intervention.
The set and lighting design, by Bruce Long, put nautical items on a stage painted in swirling blue, against a backdrop of a square sail and sky. It's singularly effective in suggesting the milieu of the great voyage while providing the text with freedom to range halfway across the world.
``Brendan's Journey'' will provide pairs of actors with opportunities to test and display the range of their skills. It would be interesting to see how the play might evolve in the hands of other performers. The show also should have a future in educational theater, acquainting mature secondary school students with one of the important stories about the so-called discovery of America. ILLUSTRATION: Graphic
WHEN AND WHERE
What: ``Brendan's Journey,'' by Gillette Elvgren
When: 8 p.m. Friday through Sunday, Oct. 4 to 6
Where: Regent University Classroom Building, 1000 Regent
University Drive
Tickets: 579-4245 by CNB