The knowledge that we have limited years in these bodies forces on each person a decision of purpose. Shall I go quietly into frailty, or should I push my intellect and spirit until the very end?
Mortality hangs heavy over Dr. Katherine Brandt and Ludwig van Beethoven in "33 Variations," Moisés Kaufman's diffuse and frustrating play that opened Friday in a production directed by James Rocco at Park Square Theatre in St. Paul.
The composer struggled against deafness and depression while writing some of his greatest works later in life. Brandt, a 21st-century musicologist, refuses to let ALS deter her quixotic quest to understand why Beethoven wrote 33 variations for piano on a simple beer-hall waltz written by music publisher Anton Diabelli. The "Diabelli Variations," as they are known, are among the best piano works that Beethoven or any other composer left us.
Kaufman ("The Laramie Project") has reached for virtuosity in this work (which starred Jane Fonda on Broadway). Pianist Irina Elkina performs excerpts from the Diabelli Variations behind a lit scrim on Rob Jensen's conceptual set of musical staffs. Todd Edwards's projections illustrate both place and time — and the splotchy manuscripts where Beethoven scratched out his genius. A German librarian who guides Brandt's research explains how the genius used pencil and then ink to fill in his notes.
All this results in beautiful music, keen insight into how Beethoven worked and poignant moments of reflective determination by Brandt as she investigates how and why Beethoven obsessed over the Diabelli piece. As a musicology lecture, it's fascinating.
However, the playwright has burdened this elegant idea with a fractious mother-daughter relationship, and the daughter's budding romance. Kaufman's ambition in all this exceeds his reach. Rocco's production struggles to bring cohesion. Driftless scenes are filled with bombastic cacophony but no real purpose, and this leaves us unconvinced about the stakes of Brandt's quest.
Karen Landry projects a mild, unhurried mien as Brandt. She is likable (perhaps too much for a driven genius?) even as she nags her daughter, Clare (Jennifer Maren), to focus on a profession. Clare's artistic aspirations in this play are less important than her dalliance with her mother's nurse, a character who contributes little other than medical answers as Brandt's condition worsens.
In parallel scenes set 300 years earlier, Edwin Strout thrashes manically as Beethoven, portraying him as a bellowing boor who bullies his assistant and Diabelli himself. It is loud, distracting stuff built on gestures, posture, red faces and rage but little true character — not that Kaufman has sketched anything other than straw roles. Robert-Bruce Brake appears on the verge of bursting blood vessels as the assistant, and Peter Simmons fashions a thick middle European accent to give Diabelli a sense of place.
Maren does good, naturalistic work as Clare. Nate Cheeseman has the thankless chore of portraying the colorless nurse. Michelle Myers has better luck as Gertie, the German librarian who befriends Brandt and her daughter. Myers's portrays a character who is sympathetic and thoroughly invested in the project.
For all the scope and ambition of Kaufman's play and Rocco's production — including a lovely tableau at the show's conclusion — we wish to be moved. However, not all the notes are there for that to happen.
Graydon Royce • 612-673-7299
