‘Smash’ clever, but unintelligible some of the time

Release Date: 11/07/09
"Smash," a play adaptation by Jeffrey Hatcher of George Bernard Shaw's comic novel "An Unsocial Socialist," contains some witty dialogue. In the production that opened Friday at the College of St. Scholastica, though, a serious portion of it was incomprehensible.

High-pitched female voices combined with imperfect British accents to render vast stretches of the performance utterly unintelligible.

Exceptional costuming, a delightful set and a couple of outstanding performances were not enough to offset the cacophonous babble, and an uncertain directorial hand on a challenging script didn't help.

"Smash" opens with groom Sidney Trefusis announcing to his bride of 20 minutes, "I'm leaving you." It seems that Trefusis, a millionaire, has decided he is a socialist whose duty is to overthrow the capitalist system of 1910 England and fears a wife would interfere with pursuing that goal. Assuming the guise of a handyman named Mengels (Marx + Engels), he takes a job at a women's college that he intends to make the jumping off point for his assault on the status quo.

It's a farce, requiring a brisker pace than director Scott Smith has set, and a cohesive vision that he has not communicated to his players. But it's also classic Shaw, with its gleeful skewering of reflexive conventions of all sorts, political, social, even romantic, but Smith invests so much in the farcical he slights the commentary.

As Trefusis, Andy Rakerd labors like Sisyphus against the weight of the plodding, disjointed production as well as the burden of a role so preposterous it would tax an Olivier or a DeNiro.

As Henrietta, the abandoned spouse, and Agatha, the headstrong student drawn to Mengels' revolutionary zeal, Julia Wynne and Amanda Imberg deliver strong performances.

Wynne masters the manner of those to the manor born, with a cool poise and elegant carriage worthy of the sumptuous gowns in which costume designer Kevin Seime has clothed her.

Imberg brings total conviction to the role of the rebellious Agatha. From the moment she enters, riding a bicycle in circles around the martinet of a headmistress (Hollie Mitchem), Imberg makes her character credible as a young woman determined to change things, even if she has no idea what she would change them to.

Wynne and Imberg also manage to be both British and agitated without shredding their lines.

Paul Brissett is a Duluth writer and amateur actor who has appeared in numerous community theater productions.