PLAY: "Politics of Passion: Plays of Anthony Minghella"

Photo/Stan Barouh

Politics of Passion: Plays of Anthony Minghella, running in repertoire with Potomac Theatre Project's other show, No End of Blame, is an uneven, overdirected hodgepodge of verbal sparring. The first two segments, the self-contained, but uneventful "Hang Up," (which places subtext in the foreground) and the too-brief-to-bother-mentioning excerpt from "Truly, Madly, Deeply," (which replaces small talk with immediate intimacy) are mini-showcases for actors, but they seem more suited for theater classes than audiences. The third piece, a novella of a play called "Cigarettes and Chocolate," has a rough and disjointed start that makes it seem like director Cheryl Faraone has a thing for Jim Jarmusch, and by the time it picks up (on the strength of actors like James Matthew Ryan and Tara Giordano), it's almost over.

The largest issue with this production is that Minghella isn't very passionate. He lacks the subtle knifing craft of Harold Pinter and doesn't have the visceral sharpness of Patrick Marber, and his keen eye for structure (as evinced in a few of the longer monologues) makes him better suited for the dispassive grace of cinema (where he started) than the yawning space of the theater. Even the best moments of "Cigarettes and Chocolate" seem like faint shadows beside the burning lights of other realists: for example, Wally Shawn's The Fever. It's a shame because the concept is rather strong: Gemma (an astonishingly expressive Cassidy Freeman) ceases to talk one day, leaving her brash but insecure husband, Rob (Ryan) to wonder if it's because of his affair with Lorna (Giordano). The truth is that it's more of a hunger strike than anything, a protest by this well-off woman of the conditions of the world around her. It's hard to tell though, given how closely Minghella plays his cards to his chest.

Dulling intellectualism can be overcome by theatrical staging or embraced by minimalism: unfortunately, Faraone takes a little too much of each. Her use of pastel lighting and frozen time makes the show seem overly pretentious, and her use of selections from Bach's "St. Matthew's Passion" gropes too hard for a connection where there is none. Within the scenes, the music is already being critiqued; used outside them, it casts a monotony over the already dry play.

This isn't to say that the whole production is bad, but it seems like Minghella's advice about infidelity is true: an affair is nothing if nobody talks about it. Well, nobody really talks in Politics of Passion; consequently, the show isn't about much either.

PLAY: "No End Of Blame"

Photo/Stan Barouh

"Cartoon is the lowest form of art," says Bela Veracek, a political cartoonist loosely modeled on Victor Weisz (or perhaps Philip Zee). "And the most important one." It's the latter half of this insightful statement that director Richard Romagnoli has gone with, for there's nothing low about Potomac Theatre Project's revival of Howard Barker's excellent epic No End Of Blame. Bolstered by the menacing ink of Bela's work (actually that of Gerald Scarfe), projected against an otherwise blank canvas, every ounce of this production is as carefully considered as Barker's meticulous word choice (most obvious in a scene with a cultural "critic" in Russia).

The play opens with Veracek as the most unlikely of heroes: conscripted in the Hungarian army during World War I, his logical mind tries to explain how rape might be "considerate" in certain circumstances. Though Bela's strong opinions become more acceptable (and accessible, as the play stretches through World War II into the '70s), the world around him continues to judge him as a rebel. What's fascinating about Barker's sharply satirical prose and Romagnoli's direction is how this strong personality is used to make the rest of the world a constant reflection of its own nonsense: well-mannered Russian communists try to make Bela conform in the same Inquisition-like fashion as angry loyalists to the British Royal Air Force, the pompous politicians of Churchill's party, and even the neutral professors of a Budapest art school. No End Of Blame succeeds in making Bela the hero by pitting the world against his cartoons; even as his strongest supporters fade, like Bob Stringer, his editor at the Daily Mirror, and his one friend, Grigor Gabor runs off with his wife, Ilona, Bela's art -- thick lines blown up in the background -- stands for something truer than what it represents.

No End Of Blame also features a topnotch ensemble, a cast of thirteen who are capable of showing the broad changes from era to era in Bela's journey from idealism to suicide. Alex Draper is a standout as Bela, a man so wrapped up in himself that his treats his wife's affair with patient stoicism and his own critics with nonchalant dismissals, but he's well-assisted by Christopher Duva, who plays both his innocent friend, Grigor, and, later, the unctuous censor Frank Deeds, and people like Alex Cranmer and Peter B. Schmitz, who give substance to even tangential roles, like the two PCs who fish Bela out of the river after he jumps. In their hands, Barker's debate-heavy script becomes engaging, escaping the leadenness of other intellectual plays. They also manage to find the darkness behind the politeness and match drama to the exposition, without ever seeming to emote.

The emotion of No End Of Blame is all in the passion and the struggle for culture, but even those looking for standard physical drama will get caught up in the nuanced presentation by the Potomac Theatre Project. "Give us a pencil," cries Bela, as he passes the struggle on to another generation, but he should demand more. This play is worth so much more than a pencil.