Huntington brings Ellison's "Invisable Man" to life at BU Theater

How do you make the Invisible visible? This is the challenge taken up by playwright Oren Jacoby and Director Christopher McLeroen in this new adaptation of Ralph Ellison’s “Invisible Man”. “Invisible Man” is among the most important pieces of fiction on the topic of race in America and can be argued to be among the most important novels of 20th century. This adaption, the first allowed by the Ellison estate, is a chance to experience the power of Ellison’s original theatrically. The Huntington Theatre’s production is beautiful to look at and includes many moving moments, but falls prey to it’s obligations to the original.

The novel is written in the first person and much of its power comes from the distinct voice of the unnamed protagonist, the Invisible Man. The reader is invited to hear his secret thoughts; his anger, his intelligence, his delicate analysis of how his world operates and how, as a African-American, to best to navigate it. All this works well on paper, but isn’t easily adapted to the stage.

The play, like the novel, opens with the Invisible Man, played admirably by Teagle F. Bougerem, introducing himself. Bougere brings intelligence, outrage and humor to Ellison’s prologue, as he conveys the character’s frustration that “I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me.” Bougere stand center stage and talks directly to the audience, inviting us into his world. It’s a technique that works well as an introduction, but gets overused through the rest of the night. It seems the playwright felt obligated to include much of the character’s personal thoughts, as the novel does, rather then letting his actions speak for themselves. This might be an inevitable decision since much of the main character’s frustrations come from his lack of choices in life. This is a character who cannot act or where his actions do not define his personality, but his circumstances. Still every time we are presented with a soliloquy we are taken out of the action of the play and the drama slows to a crawl. Furthermore the perspective of the leading character is so strong that most of the other characters in the play remain one-dimensional rather then having their own depth and independent points of view.

Yet, even within the confines of the adaptation there are fine performances to be found. Brian D. Coats does a great job of creating compelling characters out of Ellison’s brief sketches including the earnest veteran Burnside and the jive talking street survivor Peter Wheatstraw. Johnny Lee Davenport is harrowing as Dr. Bledsoe, the president of the college who scolds the main character “ you’ve grown up in the south, and you haven’t learned to lie?” Jeremiah Kissel also stands out as he plays two of the nights more empathetic white characters especially as Emerson Junior. Kissel does a fine job of appearing only pathetic as he tries to be sympathetic to the Invisible Man’s plight looking for a job. It is one of the most revealing scenes of the night and one of the most moving.

The play is long at almost three hours with the first act working the best. This act includes two of the plays most visual and moving episodes: a humiliating ‘battle royale’ the Invisible Man is subjected to as part of his acceptance of a scholarship and his life altering afternoon escorting college benefactor Mr. Norton, played with effective innocence and frailty by Edward James Hyland, around the college’s town. Both episodes translate well to the stage and give you a real sense of the daily humiliation, racism and self-hatred African-Americans were exposed to in the South, in the 1930s.

But the second half of the play loses much of this power as Ellison’s story shifts from describing the problems of race in American to testing possible solutions. The Invisible Man’s quest to be ‘visible’ follows his experiences within a clatch of American communists trying to bring political awareness to Harlem and its struggles with a separatist organization headed by the angry and charismatic Ras, played by McKinley Belcher 3rd. This was a vital and timely topic for Ellison’s contemporaries, when Marxism was yet to be revealed as a dangerous and easily corruptible ideology and African-American separatism was on the rise. But now these philosophies seem dated and hardly in need of dissection. In a nation where elections never get above 57% of the vote, the critique of the use of emotional rhetoric over the ‘scientific approach’ are sadly anachronistic.

Still with its faults, the production includes plenty to like. McElroen’s direction has plenty of arresting visuals. At the center of the production, quite literally, is one of Ellison’s most vivid inventions, the 1369 light bulbs that the main character keeps on all the time as a way of keeping himself feeling vitally alive and ‘visable.’ These lights are introduced in the prologue and are then ingeniously rearranged scene to scene, thanks to set designer Troy Hourie and lighting designer Mary Louise Gieger. This detail, along with projections designed by David Remedios, transform the industrial set into dozens of venues and scenes with elegance. In fact the entire production team does a great job of bringing Ellison’s world to life.

“Invisible Man” remains one of American literature’s most important milestones and this production does it’s best to convey it’s contents with intelligence and drama. Although not completely successful, the cast does it’s best to breath life into the overburdened script.

"Invisible Man" Adapted for the stage by Oren Jacoby, based on the novel by Ralph Ellison
Directed by Christopher McElroen
Presented by the Huntington Theatre Company
NOW through February 3 2012
at the BU Theatre, 264 Huntington Avenue, Boston MA 02115
For Tickets: 617 266 0800

How do you make the Invisible visible? This is the challenge taken up by playwright Oren Jacoby and Director Christopher McLeroen in this new adaptation of Ralph Ellison’s “Invisible Man”. “Invisible Man” is among the most important pieces of fiction on the topic of race in America and can be argued to be among the most important novels of 20th century. This adaption, the first allowed by the Ellison estate, is a chance to experience the power of Ellison’s original. The Huntington Theatre’s production is beautiful to look at and includes moving moments, but falls prey to staying too true to the original and fails to translate much of its power.

The novel is written in the first person and much of its power comes from the distinct voice of the never named Invisible Man. The reader is invited to hear his secret thoughts; his anger, his intelligence, his delicate analysis of how his world operates and how, as a African-American, to best to navigate it. All this works well on paper, but doesn’t easily adapt to the stage.

The play is long at almost three hours with the first act working the best. This act also includes two of the plays most visual and moving episodes: a humiliating ‘battle royale’ the Invisible Man is subjected to as part of his acceptance of a scholarship and his life altering afternoon escorting college benefactor Mr. Norton, played with effective innocence and frailty by Edward James Hyland, around the college’s town. Both episodes translate well to the stage and give you a real sense of the daily humiliation, racism and self-hatred African-Americans were exposed to in the South, in the 1930s.

But the second half of the play loses much of this power as Ellison’s story shifts from describing the problems of race in American to testing possible solutions. The invisible man’s quest to be ‘visible’ follows his experiences within a clutch of American communists trying to bring political awareness to Harlem and its struggles with a separatist organization headed by the angry and charismatic Ras, played by McKinley Belcher 3rd. This was a vital and timely topic for Ellison’s contemporaries, when Marxism was yet to be revealed as a dangerous an easily corruptible ideology and African-American separatism was on the rise. But now these philosophies seem dated and hardly in need of dissection. In a nation where elections never get above 57% of the vote, the critique of the use of emotional rhetoric over the ‘scientific approach’ are just sadly anachronistic.

Still with its faults, the production includes plenty to like. At the center of the production, quite literally, is one of Ellison’s most vivid inventions, the 1369 light bulbs that the main character keeps on all the time as a way of keeping himself feeling vitally alive and ‘visable.’ These lights are introduced in the prologue and are then ingeniously rearranged scene to scene, thanks to set designer Troy Hourie and lighting designer Mary Louise Gieger. This detail, along with projections designed by David Remedios, transform the industrial set into dozens of venues and scenes with elegance. In fact the entire production team does a great job of bringing Ellison’s world to life.