The Secret of Mme Bonnard's Bath: 'Saudade

Israel Horovitz's new play The Secret of Mme. Bonnard's Bath is a lovely meditation on art and love and pain. It is based on the art of Pierre Bonnard and the tumult of his varied love life. The play bounces around in time, giving us fragmented, kaleidoscopic views of the artist.

There is a mystery attached to his paintings, and two young art students in modern France are researching Bonnard for their exams, and meanwhile falling in love. As their story plays out, it echoes that of Bonnard and his passions.

The acting is wonderful: all the roles are played by 3 performers, John Shea, Stephanie Janssen, and Michael Bakkensen. Bakkensen especially is powerful, he is a chameleonic revelation- every moment he's on stage is specific and perfect, whether he's young art student Luc, corpulent art dealer Vollard (as whom he seems to be channeling Wallace Shawn), or on his knees as Toulouse-Lautrec.

Janssen (so good recently in Israel Horovitz's New Shorts) has the unenviable task of portraying three very different female lovers in Bonnard's life as well as the art student Aurélie (and an Italian waitress), and handles it with aplomb. A moment where she's left alone onstage as Marthe, Bonnard's long-suffering, long-unwed harridan of a wife, is a high point of the piece.

Shea (who plays Bonnard at various ages through the piece), despite playing a philandering asshole, brings a sensitivity to the role that makes one like Bonnard despite his failings.

The set is beautifully designed by Jenna McFarland Lord, all painted in the style of Bonnard's work. Two screens above the stage are projected with Bonnard's work, and that of the other artists involved, which clarifies a lot of the art-heavy action.  The sound design by Julie Pittman is also quite lovely.

With so much good, it's unfortunate that the script covers such a lot of territory that's been well-covered by many other people: there's a multitude of other works about philandering artists and genius that can't be tied down to ordinary limits- Sunday in the Park with George, Picasso at the Lapin Agile, the movie Pollock, Amadeus- and thus this one seems almost to be déjà vu at times. At least Horovitz gives a fresh perspective; his characters claim that Artists, who know and understand pain, should know better than to cause it, and they sometimes try to live up to that noble sentiment.

Horovitz also employs a lot of the stylistic tricks that he used in his very powerful Lebensraum, (actors poking their heads and arms through paintings, seemingly ritualistic address to the audience announcing the intermission and end of the play, only 3 actors playing many roles) but where there they seemed organic to that very presentational play, here they felt tacked-on. (Not to mention that the opening lines of the play seemed to be the same astronomical information as the opening lines of "Affection in Time", one of the monologues fromIsrael Horovitz's New Shorts.) 

The night I was there, the playwright himself came out to tell us to turn off our cellphones, an interesting echo of Bonnard's habit of including images of himself in his work.

Though it left me vaguely unsatisfied, the play was good, and certainly worth seeing.

Photos (by Lilly Charles) feature:
John Shea as Pierre Bonnard, Michael Bakkensen and Stephanie Janssen (in various roles)

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