I have had several Salon folks recommend Wittenberg to me and I plan to see it this week: the idea of Hamlet being pulled between two professors, Martin Luther and Dr. Faustus, and having to choose between the life of the mind or the salvation of the soul resonates with the current Salon study of Dante’s Paradiso and the upcoming Hamlet study. Also excited about the National Theatre’s readings of passages of the King James Bible coming up in November and October…until we get to the Bible as Literature Salon, this should satisfy.
The classic American campus drama gets a makeover in David Davalos‘s spry, old-fashioned comedy, in which the traditional liberal US college is substituted for the Catholic University of Wittenberg circa 1517. It was a time of new ideas, including those of the Polish astronomer Copernicus, challenging existing beliefs. Think Tom Stoppard’s Jumpers meets Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead and you have a taste of this smart-arse evening, in which Davalos doesn’t just wear his learning on his sleeve but plasters it all over the stage.
Something is rotten in the papal states. The pope is busy flogging off indulgences to fund his building projects. But at Wittenberg, the professor of theology, Martin Luther (Andrew Frame), still keeps the faith despite his frustrations: a severe case of constipation and constant needling from fellow academic Dr Faustus (Sean Campion). Faustus is the professor of philosophy who believes in free will and practises a little psychoanalysis on the side. We may all go to the devil, but at least we can do it thinkingly. Or maybe crooning: Faustus has a weekly gig singing at the local tavern, The Bunghole; Que Sera Sera is his theme tune. Into the mix comes Hamlet (Edward Franklin), prince of Denmark and college tennis champion, back for his senior year and in a teenage dither. Will Faustus win the confused young man’s mind, or can Luther win his soul?
In the pot, Davalos throws fiction and fact, real historical figures and those from literature, and with Tiggerish enthusiasm gives it a stir. The japes come thick and fast. Who really nailed Luther’s 95 theses to that church door? Will it be Hamlet or Laertes who is the victor in the Wittenberg versus Paris college tennis tournament? How many Poles does it take to make the world go round? It’s ticklish fun, but slightly exhausting, and so busy showing off that it almost entirely forgets to be about anything substantial.
The stand-off between faith and reason never materialises, either intellectually or dramatically, because Davalos is always heading off in search of the next joke. This is an evening that can take nothing seriously: not even the meaning of life. Christopher Hayden’s production has the brio to match the script, and there are terrific performances all round, but although I laughed and enjoyed the literary references and academic in-jokes, the earth never moved for me.
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