Word: woyzeck
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Georg Buchner died at the age of 24 without answering this question about his character Woyzeck. The play stands as a skeleton, a series of 27 sketches which can be ordered to create either a clinical analysis or a predetermined tragic play. Although director Glen Bouchard has cut five scenes from the original manuscript and rearranged others, the Quincy House Theatricals' production of Woyzeck fails to arrive at a clear interpretation. The production opens with a socially oppressed Woyzeck, the constant object of his captain's moral lessons and his doctor's pointless experiments. But a few scenes later...
...Quincy House production succeeds best as an unresolved confrontation between a tortured man and a hostile world. Judith Swan's lighting is a simple contrast of brights and blackouts. The triptych designed by Roger Bardwell to represent the army barracks, doctor's office, and Woyzeck's home is appropriately pared down to a few wooden chairs and tables. The director's blocking is often awkward, but the physical, and frequently brutal, interactions of the characters on a practically bare stage produce powerful moments...
Glenn Turner's Woyzeck mirrors the strengths and weaknesses of the production, succeeding at isolated emotions but never really commanding his character. Turner is good as the victimized soldier, quietly bowing to his captain's abuse while even more quietly considering twisting the blade of the razor with which he shaves him. And Turner is equally good in the scene of the jealous lover, spitting out rage and a disgust of the flesh worthy of an Othello. But he does not convey Woyzeck's slow emotional deterioration and the enlightenment that should come with the consciousness of his own fall...
...Landrum as Marie evades the problem of motivations entirely. Landrum, seducing the drum major and frightening her child to sleep, would like to be the emotional center of the play. But she remains a spoiled little girl fingering the earrings the major gives her throughout, succeeding in making even Woyzeck's love for her almost unconvincing...
...Strassner is especially good as Katey, the accomodating barmaid, trying to keep everyone happy while having a good time herself. But paradoxically it is Bonnie Ann DeLorme as the victimizing doctor who offers the most fully developed characterization. DeLorme's visible self-hatred as she forces Woyzeck to live on peas for the sake of her experiment is her private realization that society is cruel to give Woyzeck's growing delusions names instead of cures. DeLorme's sensitivity to Woyzeck's plight is her acceptance of her own guilt for Woyzeck's crime as well as the emotional crux...