What is going on at the Artists Repertory Theatre lately? The
bar has been incrementally dropping all season (a recent, decent
production of Streetcar notwithstanding), and their current limp
production of The History Boys does nothing to counter
the downward tendency.
Alan Bennett’s multiple Tony Award-winning script focuses on a group
of bright secondary students who are preparing to sit for their
Oxbridge entrance exams, which will determine if they get to attend
Oxford or Cambridge. They are guided in their studies by Hector
(Michael Kevin), a benignly lecherous, poetry-spouting teacher whose
occasional wandering hands (read: ball grabs) are considered by
everyone involved to be no more than harmless tributes.
Enter Irwin (played by an appropriately uptight Chris Harder), a
young teacher hired to coach the boys for their exams, whose teaching
methods upset the relationship between Hector and the students: Irwin
introduces the idea that truth is malleable, and that beauty and
passion might be a little too obvious to be interesting. Throw in a
pederasty scandal, and the sheer cruel arrogance of the young, and it
makes for an engaging script. It this case, however, it does not make
for a particularly engaging production.
Frenetic set and sound design overwhelm the actors: Punk and new age
blare between scenes and school bells jarringly announce the end of
every scene. Jeff Seats’ set design in particular is bafflingly bad,
given the good work he’s done at Artists Rep and elsewhere in the past.
Benches made of stacked books and covered in ivy? My high school
production of Guys and Dolls was designed more thoughtfully than
this.
There’s just something goofy about this show, something cartoonish
and overplayed. This is more the fault of the direction than the
acting—the ensemble here ranges from competent to quite good (of
particular note, the performance of Tyler Caffall, who’s been plugging
away at small roles for a few years now and does great work here as
Scripps, the boy who narrates much of the show.) If the pack of boys at
times more closely resembles the cartoon puppies from 101
Dalmatians than the boundary-pushing, hormonal teens they’re meant
to be, the fault lies less with the actors than with a director who
couldn’t seem to resist overblowing the whole affair.