"Treasure Island" at Berkeley Rep

This was one of the shows that got me excited for the current season at Berkeley Rep. Treasure Island was one of those books I loved when I was a kid, and enjoyed when I re-read it as an adult. So seeing it on stage, adapted and directed by Mary Zimmerman,  in a production in conjunction with Lookingglass Theatre Company (of whom I've heard great things), seemed like a sure thing. Plus, pirates!

And on the whole, I liked it. There are some issues, but overall, I liked the production. Reactions in my group were mixed, including some who left at intermission.

Summary

Really, what do I need to say? It's Treasure Island, adapted (quite faithfully) from the Robert Louis Stevenson novel. It's Jim Hawkins, Long John Silver, Billy Bones, and a cast of pirates looking for treasure. On an island. X marks the spot. This is kind of the Ur-pirate story, and if you don't know it, nothing I say here is going to help you.

The set is very clever. It's a big wooden swing with ship's rigging that can be stationary to serve as the Admiral Benbow Inn or the stockade on the island, but can also rock and roll when the ship is at sea. I thought that was quite well done. There are roving musicians playing sea chanteys, and overall the nautical elements are quite convincing.

Unexpected Excitement

In the second act, just as Jim is about to make his surprise entrance to the stockade, a fire alarm went off. We were all pretty stunned for a few seconds, and then Captain Smollett (Philip R. Smith) took command and urged us all to evacuate in a calm and organized manner. We did. We all headed out to the street, the Berkeley Fire Department came and apparently concluded that the alarm was in error (or the put out whatever set it off), and we filed back in after about a 15-minute interlude. The cast did a good job of picking up where they'd left off.

I have to say, I can't recall ever being in a theater and having an alarm go off like that. We had a somewhat similar episode during a college basketball game many years ago at the Oakland Coliseum Arena, but no one apparently believed it was real. They just kept playing, and no one left. Kind of surreal, that.

Anyway, it made for kind of a long evening. The program lists the run time as 2:10, plus a 15-minute intermission. So one would expect the 7:00 show to end before 9:30, but we didn't get out until about 10:00, so things ran a bit long even without the interruption.

My Thoughts

It did seem a bit sluggish at times. We deliberated over whether the heavily accented characters were speaking slowly so as to enunciate more clearly. But truthfully, even with that they were a bit hard to understand at times. And both Jim Hawkins (John Babbo) and Long John Silver (Steven Epp) seemed to have some difficulty deciding which accent they were going to use. Where other actors were changing roles at times, both of these were playing only a single role, so a solid accent (whatever it be) would be helpful. At least one, probably two, of our party who left at the intermission said they just couldn't take the wandering accents from those characters.

But we persisted through that, and were mostly pleased that we did. The second act gets a bit more into the psychological drama of negotiating with pirates when your health and safety, at least, are on the line. I'll spare you any spoilers. Suffice it to say that we get to a satisfactory ending.

Maybe my expectations were a bit too high for this show. But I did think the production was top quality (set, light, and sound all very well designed and implemented). The pacing and accent issues struck me as issues that I would have expected director Zimmerman to have ironed out long before this--certainly I have not encountered such in the other productions of hers I've seen at Berkeley Rep and Ashland.

And finally there is Steven Epp. I like the guy--really, I do. He is a very talented clown and actor, but in all the roles I've seen him play, he is definitely Steven Epp. And that contributed somewhat to the slow pace of the play tonight, as he mugged and drew out some of his bits. He does it well, but at a price to the overall production. Those stylings are suited to a broad farce than in an ensemble adventure story.

Bottom Line

It was worth going. There was a lot to like in the show, but even without the fire-alarm interruption, the show was feeling a bit long. A bit tighter direction and a little more discipline with the language would have helped a lot.

But still, pirates! And the second pirate show of the season at Berkeley Rep, following The Hypocrites' Pirates of Penzance. So extra points for extra pirates.