Press

NEW YORK CITY | THEATRE REVIEW - Broken Journey

By Victor Gluck

An old proverb says there are three sides to any story: your side, my side, and the truth. The great Japanese director Akira Kurosawa explored this in his masterpiece Rashomon, adapted from the short story "In a Grove" by Ryunosuke Akutagawa. Now British playwright Glyn Maxwell's contemporary version, Broken Journey, is being given its American premiere by Phoenix Theatre Ensemble.

Why another Rashomon? In an age of spin doctors, discovering the truth is a very thorny question. Broken Journey explores the theme: What is truth and can we ever really know it?

Maxwell, a well-known poet, experiments with using iambic pentameter for contemporary speech in the manner of T.S. Eliot. This puts a great demand on the actors as well as the audience. However, when you have Craig Smith and Elise Stone -- well known for their many classical performances with Jean Cocteau Repertory -- speaking it, Maxwell's voluptuous language beguiles.

In a police interrogation room, events that happened the previous night on a deserted road are recounted and then reenacted. Biker Troy met rich playboy Andre and his current girlfriend, Chloe, when their car ran out of gas. Andre ended up dead -- but what led up to this? Was Chloe raped, complicit, or did she try to humiliate her boyfriend?

As in Rashomon, we hear and see all three conflicting versions (the dead man's story is told through a psychic). In both dramatizations, however, there is a witness who was hiding in the bushes: His version contradicts all three. Under Ted Altschuler's polished direction, Smith as the biker, Michael Surabian as Andre, and Stone as Chloe are wonderful at creating four variations on the same characters. Joe Rayome's witness and Sheila O'Malley's psychic are comic portraits. Narelle Sissons' set cleverly overlaps the police station and the highway.



Presented by Phoenix Theatre Ensemble at Theatre Three, 311 W. 43rd St., 3rd fl., NYC. Nov. 12-Dec. 10. Tue.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 3 p.m. (No performances Nov. 22-24.) (212) 352-3101.