After nearly three hours, I felt I had spent a whole semester in Hector's and Irwin's classrooms in The History Boys. Alan Bennett's schoolroom drama (with touches of humor) is part social commentary, part academic heresy, part character study, and part finding that one dislikes many of the characters.
On the other hand, Cygnet Theater's work, under the direction of Sean Murray, is eccentrically staged and brilliantly acted. Thus, I left the play with strongly mixed emotions.
The History Boys play takes place in various classrooms and some academicians' offices. There are uncounted scenes. The scene changes are a delightful contrast from the classroom setting as the students frenetically change the set, moving student chairs, tables, and teacher's desk hither and yon.
Placed in a British boy's school, the students are all seniors about to enter university. As with most males of this age, their interests run to sex, sport, and good university placement, in that order. They are fairly bright and a bit unruly with a touch of arrogance. The eight students are excellently played by Bryan Bertone, Jacob Caltrider, Patrick Kelly, Kevin Koppman-Gue, Sean LaRocca, Dail Desmond Richard, Bobby Schiefer, and Tom Zohar, with Ryan Lahetta understudying their roles.
Tom Stephenson plays Hector, their English teacher, who is a bit of a maverick. While he has some socially redeeming qualities, his relationship to most of his students would quickly land him in long-term confinement. He is a motorcycle rider encouraging his boys to take rides with him. Stephenson plays this difficult character always keeping him on a fine line between good and evil.
The history teacher, Irwin (Brian Mackey), has his own teaching methods, which are freewheeling, offering his charges the opportunity to delve deeply into history. He is definitely not an "event and date" type of professor. His joyful idea idea of learning is to attempt to make his class members actually think and seek out truth. This is mostly a lost cause with the group.
Jillian Frost is Mrs. Dorothy Lintott, the lone female in the cast. She provides a nice bit of contrast in her interactions with both teachers and the headmaster (Eric Poppick). The headmaster attempts, with some success, to control both the students and his teachers. His relationship is disastrously strained with Hector. Poppick has a very short amusing piece as a video director.
One totally unexpected highlight is the integration of music. We are blessed with some golden tones from Zohar in solo and then with all the students.
Each boy has a well-defined character, though it does take playwright Bennett a long three hours to give us his assessment and critique of the British private school system.
