Review: Modern Adaptation of THE SCARLET LETTER at Oyster Mill

It's customary to hear the words "The Scarlet Letter" and gag. Nathaniel Hawthorne is quite possibly America's answer to Victor Hugo for difficulty of reading for many people. However, just as "Les Miserables" found its way into both French and English-speaking popular culture even before the hit musical, "The Scarlet Letter" has had its share of interpretations - several plays, and even an opera. Director Joyce O'Donnell at Oyster Mill Playhouse has chosen one of the plays, THE SCARLET LETTER by Phyllis Nagy, as Oyster Mill's most recent presentation.

This version bills itself as a "modern adaptation," and modern it is, the dialogue easy enough to follow while still retaining a sufficiently stilted quality to remind you that the story isn't fresh from yesterday's National Enquirer. However, the devil is in the details, many of which Nagy omits in her effort to bring Hawthorne's classic plot in at under two hours and with only seven characters.

The leads for this production are well-cast. Samuel Eisenhuth has made, it seems, a bit of a specialty at Oyster Mill in being dead or dying - he was last seen as the stiff in LUCKY STIFF and is now the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, the young Boston preacher all too complicit in Hester Prynne's downfall. David Garrick famously said "Dying is easy, it's comedy that's hard" on his deathbed, but being a dying man on stage is never easy, and Eisenhuth delivers a fine performance as the increasingly invalid Dimmesdale, allegedly a fine preacher but at his most intense in his private moments with Hester (Stephanie Via) or his fierce debates with Roger Chillingham (Mike Stubbs). It is he who draws attention almost from the first as the man calling for Hester to divulge the name of her child's father, and who is, in Nagy's writing, perhaps more of a center of attention than Hester herself - fortunately, Eisenhuth delivers consistently.

Hester is played by Stephanie Via, whose performance is all the more memorable for her restraint in it. Hester Prynne, one of the great heroines in fiction, is larger than life as written, without the many productions of various versions of this story in which the actors chosen to play her go over the top. Accused of adultery and suspected of almost anything, Hester was always, in the novel, a model of decorum and piety in public, despite the rumors about her, and Via supplies the modesty that Hester requires, as well as the fire needed to defend herself and her parenting to Governor Bellingham and others.

One of those others is Roger Chillingham, played by Mike Stubbs, a fake physician and secretly Hester's husband. Stubbs plays Chillingham as a bear of a man, in this case in stature as well as in temperament. The scenes - confrontations, in fact - between Stubbs and Eisenhuth are particularly intense, especially given Reverend Dimmesdale's debilitating condition and the question of Chillingham's medical treatment of the minister. Stubbs brings somewhat of a different quality to Chillingham than is original to the book, in which he was short and squat, more of a toad in looks and action than Nagy envisions or Stubbs portrays, but Stubbs never fails to make each of the supposed friendly discussions between himself and Dimmesdale appear to be pieces in a deadly game of cat and mouse.

Nagy's vision of the story contains more overt humor than Hawthorne saw in it, and the center of that humor is jailer Julius Brackett, played ably by Benjamin Hemler. Hemler has only recently returned to the stage, but he does have innate comic timing that renders Brackett a welcome sight in his few appearances on stage.

The play is narrated by one of the most unusual of omniscient narrators - Hester's daughter Pearl, who narrates as an adult woman but appears in scenes as a young child. O'Donnell's choice for Pearl is Miranda Baldys, an 18-year old last seen at Oyster Mill in ANGEL STREET. Baldys is a fortunate choice, her ability to shift between adult and child on stage at the drop of a hat commendable. At the moment she appears on stage wearing her handcrafted "A" of tree burrs and brambles, announcing it prettier her than her mother's, as the child Pearl does not understand why her mother wears the ornamented needlework letter on her clothing, there is no possible response to her as an adult - she simply is the uncomprehending child.

Charles Smith and Megan McClain appear in secondary parts as Governor Bellingham and Mistress Hibbons, his sister who all but openly professes to be a witch, but whose sanity may be in question. Hibbons' interactions with Pearl are fascinating, though Nagy never makes it clear if Hibbons is trying to find out who Pearl's father is, or if she is attempting to recruit Pearl into witchcraft. Apologies to any neopagans, but this is witchcraft as it was understood in the 18^th Century, not a particularly pleasant piece of work.

The minimalist forest set is one of the most effective forests seen on stage in this area recently, and O'Donnell's directing shows not only her love for the work but a tight, coherent vision for it not always supplied by Nagy's book for the play. If you are unfamiliar with Hawthorne's novel or were one of the many who never could comprehend the book, this is a useful introduction to the classic tale of love, revenge, and the nature of redemption. (Wait, isn't that "Les Miserables"? Perhaps Hawthorne and Hugo have more in common than ponderousness.) Although suitable for all audiences, it is perfectly suited for high school students, both introducing them to the Hawthorne and showing them what can be done with a small non-musical drama performed by adult actors. At just under two hours with intermission, it won't take more of their life than a movie and will teach them considerably more.

At Oyster Mill only through March 17 - blink and you'll miss it. Call 717-737-6768 or visit www.oystermill.com.

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