Festen

Festen is a dangerous title for a play. Does it fester? Is it a Feast? Is it a fiesta? It turns out to be closer to a Fiasco.

David Eldridge dramatized it from a film and play by Thomas Vinterberg, Mogens Rukov and Bo Hr. Hansen. It is a stilted translation full of foreign rhythms that sound formal, old fashioned and unreal, even when family members in this examination of the consequences on a family of long-ago child abuse talk casually among themselves. One character gives us an annoying number of gratuitous "fucks" and curses every other sentence while maintaining formal speech and bad grammar.

The most interesting thing about the play is how long it goes on without communicating much of interest to the occasion. It's basically a sordid mess set in a stylized world full of depravity and darkness -- and little of it is entertaining. There's a fight with moaning and groaning and grunting, a Felliniesque parade, and it all tilts to the surreal.

The set by Ian MacNeil is designed with a black dungeon-like theme -- almost for Macbeth: dark deeds exposed, angst, gnashed teeth. There is a weird soundscape by Orlando Gough slipping in here and there and some boring songs. The lighting by Jean Kalman is superb in its choices of moods and highlights.

The actors, including Michael Hayden, Larry Bryggman, Julianna Margulies, Carrie Preston and Jeremy Sisto are all top-level professionals doing their best in this less than top-level play. With its montage layering of scenes, Festen's directed with lots of energy by Rufus Norris. But I don't enjoy spending time with these sick people.