Corrections or additions?
This article by Simon Saltzman was prepared for the January 18, 2006
issue of U.S. 1 Newspaper. All rights reserved.
Review: `Underneath the Lintel’
When “Underneath the Lintel” opened with little fanfare four years ago
at the Soho Playhouse Off-Broadway, it prompted only scattered
attention from the press. As occasionally happens, good word-of-mouth
built an audience that kept the show running for 15 months. This
intriguing and cleverly mystifying monologue by Glen Berger has
subsequently earned a fine reputation and deserved interest from
regional theaters.
The play embraces acceptable notion: That a relentless and tireless
search for an answer to a puzzling question can sometimes lead the
investigator into uncharted and unexpected territory. That could be
pretty heady stuff, especially in this case, as Berger’s protagonist,
a middle-aged Jewish Dutch librarian, finds himself in search of a
myth and the possibly miraculous. But the narrative is punctuated with
enough unpretentious humor and driven with enough intellectual
curiosity that his unlikely investigation becomes as disarmingly
winning as it becomes thought-provoking. On the down side, the
80-minute play isn’t really as profound or as persuasive as it
attempts to be. But that hardly seems to matter, as we are unwittingly
caught up in its cleverly contrived conceit.
Maria Mileaf, whose direction of “Going to St. Ives” by Lee Blessing
was one of the highlights of this past Off-Broadway season, has
directed this curiously compelling bit of mystically infused hogwash
with a relaxed command. Mainly she supports it as a solo playground
for Richard Schiff, an accomplished actor who many will immediately
recognize as (ex) White House communications director Toby Ziegler in
television’s “The West Wing.”
Schiff loses no time in embellishing his role of the self-effacing
librarian with a full quotient of endearingly exercised ticks and
traits. If I can’t vouch for the authenticity of his accent, it is
subtly revealed and soft-on-the-ear. One of the librarian’s more
ingratiating charms is to demonstrate his ability to remember trivial
historical data prompted from any combination of dates he spins on his
book stamp.
As this whiskered, bespectacled, previously dedicated librarian has
been predisposed to making sure that no book left in the overnight
slot is overdue and deserving of a fine, we are certainly intrigued by
his newly-found incentive to put together the pieces of a puzzle he
uncovers within such a book and that lead him on a world-wide
investigative journey. That this journey lands him in hot water with
his superiors and ultimately finds him without a job is almost
irrelevant.
His life is altered when he finds an old Baedeker travel guide in the
book bin. How astonishing that the book was last checked out 113 years
ago. The resulting effort to find the person who returned a book
originally checked out in 1873 leads him over continents as he begins
to follow clues that keep popping up in the strangest places. The
results of his search and discoveries encourage him to give a public
lecture in a rented auditorium where he is now eager to validate and
share his findings. Although he begins to make his case with timidity
and restraint, he does eventually summon up the kind of fervor and
inquisitive passion that presumably sparked the unraveling of “The Da
Vinci Code.”
As designed with austere simplicity by Neil Patel, the setting is the
stage of the auditorium, the only decor being a large white board
suitable for writing as well as for the showing of slides, a bulletin
board, a wooden chair, and a table upon which is placed a battered
suitcase. The suitcase contains bits and pieces of the clues that the
librarian has carefully marked as exhibit 1, 2, 3, etc. Each clue
provides the next link to his story as it progresses, and each clue
gets tacked up for us to see. Beginning with a London dry-cleaner’s
claim check dated 1913, used as a bookmark in the Baedeker, the
librarian is compelled to follow a trail that leads him to Dingtao,
China, to Germany, to New York, and to an attic in Australia.
He introduces each item and meticulously shares with us its
significance, as each one leads to the next via a strangely circuitous
course that goes as far back as the bible in the time of Jesus. The
lintel in the title refers to the headpiece of a doorway under which
Jesus rested on the way to the cross. Sherlock Holmes could not have
pursued or submitted a case as diligently or as methodically,
especially one as improbable and convoluted as is this one. The wonder
of the narrative is that we are kept intrigued with the librarian’s
logic as well as his perseverance, even as we are left pondering the
purposefulness of this man’s relentless search for an answer.
More importantly is how the librarian validates his life and the
pursuit of truth in the wake of an ever increasing number of
presumptions and postulations. The more preposterous the evidence
becomes the more the dots seem to be connected. Although the dots have
a way of fulfilling his apparent need to give meaning to his life, it
falters a bit when reduced to the myth of the wandering Jew as its
principal/prime catalyst.
In hindsight, however, how can we not admire a librarian who is
willing to call in sick, when he isn’t – “something no librarian has
ever done” – and not exactly remember whether he quit or was fired,
and eventually find himself seeking the very thing that he has become
and perhaps always was?
– Simon Saltzman
“Underneath The Lintel,” through Sunday, February 5, George Street
Playhouse, 9 Livingston Avenue, New Brunswick. For tickets call
732-246-7717 or go to www.GSPonline.org.
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