Ghostlight Ensemble’s “The Dover Road,” with Maria Burnham and Lukas Felix Schooler/Photo: Alex Albrecht
Of course, it’s the plush, thoroughly Disneyfied figure of Winnie the Pooh that we now associate with A.A. Milne, and very little else. Milne wasn’t happy that his tales and poems about the “hunny”-loving bear of very little brain came to overshadow everything else he wrote, including dozens of plays and screenplays aimed at grownups that by now are mostly forgotten.
Is it time for a rediscovery of Milne’s non-Pooh literary output? Based on Ghostlight Ensemble’s revival of “The Dover Road,” a play that has faded from view since its 1921 New York and 1922 London premiere, the answer is… maybe. The play does share with Milne’s better-known children’s tales an appealing dose of whimsy and imagination. But the script also has a touch of sourness that the Pooh stories do not. While its message about the risks of romance and the need to consider consequences still resonates, the anti-romantic theme is taken so far and the gap between the sexes portrayed as so wide that it comes off as a downer. This century-old play is sporadically entertaining and worth watching, but I wouldn’t say it qualifies as a timeless classic.
Ghostlight, which specializes in site-specific productions, is presenting “The Dover Road” in the attached coach house of the Glessner House on Prairie Avenue, the imposing, well-preserved mansion that embodies Gilded Age Chicago. Theatergoers who arrive early are treated to a special mini-tour of the historic house, designed by Henry Hobson Richardson in a sturdily elegant Romanesque style.
Too bad the play itself isn’t a bit more structurally sturdy and verbally elegant. The script lacks the gentle charm and warmth of Pooh Bear and his friends in the Hundred Acre Wood, while the plot has a clockwork efficiency that at times makes the characters seem more like movable game pieces than choice-making human beings. And the script is done no favors by the production’s technical limitations and inconsistent acting and direction.
The premise has real promise. The title “The Dover Road” is the route traditionally taken by English lovers eloping to France, where they can live away from prying eyes and gossiping tongues. On this route lies the manor house of Mrs. Latimer (“Mr. Latimer” in the original play), a woman of unlimited wealth whose purpose in life is to prevent impetuous–and incompatible–couples from making a tragic mistake in the name of passion. Mrs. Latimer, whose power and knowledge verge on the supernatural, lures a questionable couple into her home (which, like the Glessner House, has a medieval fortress aspect to it) and locks the gates, forcing the love-smitten, scandal-courting runaways to be with each other in a situation of maximum frustration and stress–i.e., at their worst. The point is to get them to think about what it would be like to spend the ups and downs of a lifetime together. Not to get too deep into spoiler territory, but for the two couples caught in Mrs. Latimer’s web, it is an eye-opening experience.
“The Dover Road” is really a moral fable dressed up as farce. Ghostlight’s staging, under the direction of Holly Robison, only rarely manages to balance these two levels. In the slow-moving first act, in which runaway couple number one–the feckless aristocrat Leonard and the younger, prickly Anne–encounter Mrs. Latimer and her archly unflappable butler Dominic, who wears a kilt but lacks a recognizable Scottish burr. Granted, it’s a setup scene, full of exposition. Still, the director could do more to round out the characters and deepen the relationships. As it is, Maria Burnham’s Mrs. Latimer is pure know-it-all, whose motivations remain obscure; Lukas Felix Schooler’s Leonard is all huffy-puffy indignation; Hannah Perez’ Anne is pretty much straight cold fish; and James Sparling’s Dominic never veers an inch from his initial passive-aggressive fussiness. No hidden character traits emerge, and we never sense even the superficial attraction between the conspicuously mismatched Anne and Leonard.
It’s possible the characters would seem less cartoonish if they were more understandable. British accents and enunciation are an issue for several of the performers, a situation aggravated by the echo-chamber acoustics of the coach house space, which is basically a brick-lined garage, with no sound absorption.
Ghostlight Ensemble’s “The Dover Road,” with Jean E. Mueller-Burr and Nick Furlong/Photo: Alex Albrecht
There’s one moment when the show catches fire. It’s when we meet the second trapped couple, whose fate, thanks to a clever plot twist, is tied to the first pair’s. Jean E. Mueller-Burr is delightfully ditzy in the part of Eustasia, whose over-nurturing ways threaten to drive crazy her partner Nicholas, played with perfect deer-in-the-headlights indecision by Nick Furlong. The scene where Nicholas unsuccessfully tries to explain to the infantilizing Eustasia that he would prefer not to spend the rest of his life warding off her attempts to feed him “with her own ickle fingers” is a hoot, skillfully melding the play’s comedy and commentary.
Much of the rest of the play, however, feels strained. Gestures are exaggerated and the blocking seems to be more about movement for its own sake than positioning the actors where they can be seen and heard more clearly. In general, there’s too much visible effort expended in a play that—in many scenes, at least—calls for a light touch and a dry, understated wit. The play reveals how truth eventually creeps into all relationships, overcoming even the fiercest denial. But it comes quietly, during moments of reflection.
The play’s message that many a romance and marriage are built on illusion remains as valid as ever. But we would learn more about love if the play included an example of a relationship based on something more solid. As it is, the play seems to suggest that all heterosexual connections are doomed to flounder because men and women live on such separate planets—a grim thought, ill-suited to a comedy.
Late in the show, there’s a humorous moment when two of the characters come to an unexpected decision about continuing their interrupted flight to France. Still, despite this production’s twenty-first-century take on gender dynamics, this really is a play about two love affairs that fizzle out, and it’s hard to prevent an ending like that from feeling anticlimactic. Despite its comic trappings, “The Dover Road” is ultimately a journey to a sad and lonely place.
Ghostlight Ensemble’s “The Dover Road” runs through May 3 at the Glessner House, 1800 South Prairie. Tickets are pay-what-you-will, with an average donation of $30, and include a tour of the house prior to the show. For more information, visit ghostlightensemble.com.
