Metro Pulse/Backstage/The Illusion

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What:
The Illusion

When:
Thru Nov. 3. Shows are at 8 p.m. with 2 p.m. matinees on Oct. 28 and Nov. 3. There will be no 8 p.m. show on Nov. 3.

Where:
Clarence Brown Theatre

Cost:
$5-$23. Call 974-5161.

CBT works delightful magic with The Illusion

by Paige M. Travis

Tony Kushner's The Illusion is a surprising choice for the Clarence Brown Theatre's Halloween-season show, but not at all unfit. Halloween, after all, is about hiding or revealing a part of yourself for one night. Such is the very nature of theater: masquerade, performance, illusion. Things aren't always as they seem, but in this play every emotion is as real as it gets.

Written by the Pulitzer-winning American playwright of Angels in America, The Illusion is a celebration of love that's as joyful as a Shakespearean sonnet and much funnier. Kushner adapted it from L'Illusion Comique, a 17th century French play by Pierre Corneille. He changed the dialogue, but kept the fairy-tale core in which Pridamant, a lawyer in failing health, seeks out a cave-dwelling sorcerer who can tell him the whereabouts of his estranged son. He feels guilty for making his son run away, and he wants to make amends before he dies. The magician Alcandre conjures up events from the son's life in visions that both disturb and fascinate the old man.

Assisted by his toady-like amanuensis (from the Latin meaning "a slave who is employed to take dictation or to copy manuscript" or a scribe, a writer, perhaps even a playwright...), Alcandre shows Pridamant three scenes. Each finds the son with a different name and involved with a different set of people. But one element remains constant: he's always in love and in some sort of trouble because of it. In the first scene, the son, Calisto, loves Melibea, who doesn't return his affections until her maid Elicia uses reverse psychology to send her into a full-on madness for her suitor. Her father objects ("Fathers often become the nemesis of love," one character observes), but the scene dissolves before he can intervene. Pridamant is frustrated by the visions and their inexplicable nature, but he's a paying customer and Alcandre's not the kind of sorcerer you bicker with. Aaron Cabell strikes an intimidating presence with dramatic entrances (made stunning by back-lighting and amplified voices) and the way he controls his minion (Tony Cede�o), who slips into one of the visions as an iron-fisted father who plans to kill Pridamant's son despite his daughter's pleas.

Kushner's writing is as fast-paced as Tom Stoppard and as lyrical as Shakespeare. Several scenes contain or end with lines of rhymed couplets, giving the language a timeless, literary feel. As the visions are set in different time periods, costumes and even the trees in the background change according to the era. So even as the times change before our eyes, the main issues—of love and marriage, honor, betrayal and justice—don't.

The female characters played by Connan Morrissey and Jenny Langsam reveal Kushner's modern touch with this old tale. In action the women are controlled by their positions in life—as a rich man's daughter or a servant—but they are as passionate and quick-witted as their suitors, lovers or enemies. Melibea is saucily abusive to Calisto, but even if her boldness is unbecoming a woman of her time, it's a joy to behold. Her attitude furthers the sense that The Illusion is a feminist retelling of a story in which women are equal partners in love instead of just pawns in an economic arrangement between fathers.

The actors, cast from across the country save CBT favorite Cede�o, are nearly flawless. Drew Cortese is a starry-eyed Romeo with no ounce of doubt about his pursuit of love. He's the perfect leading man—romantic, honorable, brave, devil-may-care—and would seem to be an ideal son. Pridamant finds him lacking—no money, no status—but as he watches his son's life unfold, he starts to appreciate his son's greater values. Even with the white beard John Thomas Waite looks too young for the part, but he convincingly plays a strict father who tries to hold onto his beliefs while yearning for his lost son.

The play has fun with its self-awareness as a fairy tale: "I don't want to fight you." "But you have to, we're rivals." John Pasha plays each requisite rival, first as a pansy suitor and later as an entitled jerk. A special guest in the second vision seems to serve as the play's essential clown. Matamore, a scribe, is as verbose as Polonius and even more wimpy. Upon first glance, he strikes a Custer-like pose, but on second look he's more like a Yosemite Sam with all hot air and no firepower. Brad DePlanche tackles the role with a campy flair that is physically humorous and eventually quite touching.

The plot isn't as confusing as it may sound, but to reveal too much about the outcome would disarm some of the surprises. The Illusion covers a lot of territory—parent-child relationships, human nature, the art of theater, love—but one point seems to rise to the top: The illusory emotions of love, pride, trust and faith aren't set in stone like laws or houses, but they rule our lives just the same.