The Ruling Class
Written by Peter Barnes
Directed by Brian Conley
Athenaeum Theatre, 2936 N. Southport (map)
thru May 19 | tickets: $20 | more info
Check for half-price tickets
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The darker side of the 1%
Goat Song Theatre presents
The Ruling Class
Review by Lawrence Bommer
It’s tricky not to give too much away. If anything, Peter Barnes’ durable satire of the British aristocracy is even more trenchant 40 years later. Worse than ever, America has its equivalent—the 1%. Plus the inexplicable nostalgia over the late Margaret Thatcher, who divided and conquered England by crassly favoring the rich over the rest, proves that “trickle down” defenses of socialism for the affluent and austerity for the destitute continue to corrupt the body politic. Though louder than life and a bit blatant, Goat Song Theatre’s revival puts Barnes’ protest play where it belongs—in your face for all it’s worth.
Barnes first presents the 13th Earl of Gurney as a cross-dressing suicide, which doesn’t give us much hope for the 14th heir. True to the clan’s played-out genes, Jack (a supple Evan Sawdey), an ex-monk now returned to the family demesne, turns out to be a sweet schizophrenic. Consistent in his assumption of unearned privilege, this likable but loony lad fancies himself Jesus Christ (the source of a lot of self-referential humor here).
To the dismay of his venal relations, including his cousin Dinsdale (Jerico Bleu), a Conservative Party twit running for office, flower-child Jack likes to relax on the cross, delivers Franciscan-style speeches to the birds and buds, and pines for his true, if imaginary, love Marguerite Gauthier, la “dame aux camellias” from Dumas.
Like the original savior, Jack’s Jesus clearly sympathizes with the lower orders, thus disgracing the Gurney name. (It’s as if Downton Abbey became a co-op.) Assisting Jack’s crack-brained schemes is his Sancho Panza-like manservant Tucker (an overly loud Rory Jobst), a secret Marxist who loves to cock a snoot at the snobbish Gurneys.
Jack’s devious uncle Charles (Larry Garner in fine fettle) orders his mistress (persuasive Echaka Agba) to impersonate Camille in the hope that Jack will sire an heir who can be exploited after Jack is successfully committed for insanity. But the Minister of Lunacy (David Coupe), recognizing Jack as a fellow Etonian, can’t believe that an upper-crust twit could ever be balmy. Undeterred, Jack’s shrink (John Wilson) intends to cure him of this obsession by confronting him with the “electronic messiah,” an even crazier Jesus Christ avatar. The result, which is where any synopsis must stop, backfires in the old “Beware what you wish for” manner. Jack is altered all right—but into a more fascist form of bogus privilege.
Barnes’ abiding irony is that a Jesus Christ amidst the House of Peers would indeed be a fish out of water—but another sort of leader can fit in all too easily. The God of Love can easily become his vicious and homicidal Old Testament predecessor.
The accents are unimprovable (but not always comprehensible), the casting well-targeted and the pace brisk enough, considering the overlong second act that seems to be desperate for an ending. The Ruling Class has earned its right to relevance in 2013 and, sadly and certainly, for many years beyond.
Rating: ★★★
The Ruling Class continues through May 19th at Athenaeum Theatre, 2936 N. Southport (map), with performances Thursdays-Saturdays at 7:30pm, Sundays 3pm. Tickets are $20, and are available by phone (773-935-6875) or online through OvationTix.com (check for half-price tickets at Goldstar.com). More information at GoatSongTheatre.org.
artists
cast
Echaka Agba, Abby Blankenship, Jerico Bleu, David Coupe, Larry Garner, Rory Jobst, Julie Mitre, Evan Sawdey, Stephen Smith, John Wilson
behind the scenes
Brian Conley (director), Kathleen Dickinson (production manager), Annie Fors
(assistant costumes), Sean Fors (costumes), Eli King (set), Kat Reiser (stage manager), Evan Sawdey (sound), Michael C. Smith (lights)
13-0504
