The Studio@620, Roxanne Fay, and The Salvador Dali Museum are teaming up to present staged readings of George Bernard Shaw's Don Juan in Hall, the third act of his famous Man And Superman, often performed, as it is here, on its own.
Don Juan is more a four-way conversation than a drama, though it begins and ends with something like a “plot.”
Doña Ana, an elderly woman, finds herself in hell, and meets Don Juan, who many years before lusted after her. She naturally assumes that someone’s made a mistake — that she actually belongs in heaven with other “ladies.” But Don Juan refuses to validate her feeling, and tries to persuade her to accept her destiny. Unconvinced, Ana transforms into a woman of 27 (in hell, one can choose one’s own age) just in time to be joined by her father — The Statue that dragged Don Juan into hell – and the Devil. What follows for the next hour or so is an intellectual quartet on the subjects of duty and hedonism, evolution and stagnation, difficult “real” life and easy illusion.
The language is scintillating, the opinions are provocative, and the plot is non-existent — at least until the end, when Don Juan leaves in search of heaven and The Statue, tired of heaven, settles into hell.
But oh, that long middle section and its wonderfully intelligent dialogue. What Shaw (pictured above) does in this section is paint a portrait of two ways of life, one devoted exclusively to personal pleasure and the other focused on assisting “Life in its struggle upward.” Hell, in this portrait, is a home for lovers, sensualists and aesthetes: as The Statue tells Doña Ana, “Hell…is a place where you have nothing to do but amuse yourself.” Heaven, on the other hand, is a realm of virtuous difficulty, where the denizens strive to encourage human evolution with its ultimate aim, the creation of a “superman.” It’s clear which realm Shaw provides — his busy, useful life was clearly dedicated toward earthly improvement.
The all-star cast includes Todd Olson (Artistic Director of American Stage Theatre), David Warner (Editor-in-Chief, Creative Loafing) John Fleming (theater critic emeritus for the Tampa Bay Times), and Fay herself, Creative Loafing’s Best of the Bay best actress. [Note: Cast is subject to substitutions.]
$20/$10 members, Tuesday and Wednesday 7 p.m. at The Dali Museum, 1 Dali Blvd. S.E., St. Petersburg, 727-894-6068; $20/$15, Friday and Saturday 7 p.m. at The Studio @ 620, 620 First Ave. S., St. Pete. 727-895-6620.
This article appears in Nov 7-13, 2013.