Take a low−budget sitcom about a childless couple. Subtract the canned laughter. Splice in segments of a Lifetime original movie set in Enlightenment−era Europe, and watch for two hours.
If this sounds like a recipe for boredom, that's because it is.
Lyric Stage Company's New England premiere of "Legacy of Light" fails on virtually all fronts. Its plot — if something so nebulous and disjointed can be called that — is a poor attempt at fantasy, split between characters in 18th−century Europe and a couple living in modern−day America.
The play alternates between two storylines. During the Enlightenment, female scientist and noblewoman Emilie du Châtelet (Sarah Newhouse) gets pregnant after having an affair with a young poet played by Jonathan Popp. Emilie is 42 years old, and she's sure she'll die in childbirth. Unlike Emilie, modern scientist Olivia (Susanne Nitter) can't conceive. She and her husband (Allan Mayo Jr.) choose a surrogate mother, Millie (Rosalie Norris), to carry a child for them.
These developments take up the entire first hour of the play. When the show finally breaks for intermission, it's difficult to identify anything that connects the two storylines. Each plot might have been interesting on its own, but thrown together, they both turn into a boring mess. One story distracts from the other, and any tension or sense of climax is lost as audience members are constantly forced to reorient themselves.
Those masochistic enough to sit through the show's last half will discover how these two incongruous plots are ultimately related, but viewers will be more likely to roll their eyes than applaud this connection.
The show's heavy−handed statements about science and motherhood, the themes common to both plots, only make it more tedious. The show may as well have a neon sign reading "rationality versus emotion." It's like a dentist punching someone in the jaw to remove a tooth. There's a cleaner, less invasive, less painful way to go about it.
There are many things that could have saved "Legacy of Light" — a better script being one of them. The play's best joke is that it is billed as a comedy. There are a few humorous moments, especially between Emilie and her lover Voltaire (Diego Arciniegas), but these gems are buried beneath a desert of trite, relentlessly uncreative dialogue.
The only respite theater−goers have from the awkward and predictable conversations are the alternatively dry and melodramatic monologues. At times, they are addressed to the audience in a kind of pitiful mimicry of something avant−garde. The show demands that viewers suspend disbelief and accept what is presented as Enlightenment−era France as well as the strange fantasy through which both plots are connected, yet it still insists on going all meta−theater on its audience. "Legacy of Light" tries to have its cake and eat it too.
Decent acting could perhaps have salvaged this junk−heap of a show, but unfortunately, only half of the cast is engaging. Newhouse and Arciniegas are truly talented actors; their scenes are by far the most captivating. They imbue the dead script with life, and the wraith they create is far more interesting than the corpse that is the rest of the show. The quality of their performances is closely followed by that of Jonathan Popp, who is truly enthusiastic and has a strong stage presence. Newhouse, Arciniegas and Popp are the lifeboats on this theatrical Titanic.
But Nitter and Norris drag down the show's acting. It is difficult to connect with Nitter's character, who is reminiscent of a less personable, less savvy, altogether less noticeable Hillary Clinton. Perhaps Nitter was modeling her character on the distant scientist type. If so, she succeeds too well. Olivia's monologues are about as entertaining as listening to a lecture by a research scientist who hasn't talked to anyone but the rats he experiments on in over a decade.
Norris' acting is worse than Nitter's, only because her character is annoying instead of distant. She simpers around the stage with a half smile that she probably intends to be mysterious. Snapping out of this expression is something of a challenge, though. Her character changes emotions suddenly and jarringly. Norris never completely becomes her character in "Legacy of Light" — she's always an actress first.
The nail in this play's coffin is its uninspired set, and the hammer that drives the nail home is its awkward direction. The show transitions between scenes in epileptic fits, and the set construction, consisting of a chaise lounge, apple tree and sometimes a desk, only makes it more difficult for the audience to follow the changes between storylines. The apple tree is an interesting touch, as it hints at both science and feminine sexuality, but it looks straight−up moldy. This doesn't keep Voltaire from eating the tree's fruit. He averages one apple every 30 minutes, getting some serious vitamin C.
The most disconcerting part of the set is the very modern door in the center of the stage that looks as if it belongs in a bedroom. Stars and swirling clouds are projected onto the door. This set element is profoundly disconcerting because it looks too modern for the Enlightenment−era plot and too fanciful for the modern−day storyline.
The only saving grace of "Legacy of Light" is that it is more boring than painful. Lyric Stage Company, usually a solid venue for local Boston theater, deviated from its standard method, handing over the stage to a new director. The risk, unfortunately, did not pay off.
