Geoffrey Rush may be up for an Oscar for his charming role in "The King's Speech," but for one month on the BAM Harvey Theater stage he'll be letting his freak flag fly in "The Diary of a Madman." Rush dominates this predominantly one-man show, playing a gaudy civil servant in 1830s czarist St. Petersburg.
Rush perfectly embodies the clownish protagonist Poprishchin's eccentricities, slowly devolving into wild hallucinations and delusions of grandeur. In a mess of unkempt red hair, a tattered burgundy coat, green eye shadow and a red-stained nose (courtesy of expert costume designer Tess Schofield), he could easily win the audience's laughs and pathos on the basis of appearance alone.
Fellow Australian actor Yael Stone takes on the challenge of playing all the other roles in the production. She primarily serves as Poprishchin's Finnish caretaker who speaks in cloyingly broken English, moonlighting as the daughter of a director Rush's character fancies.
Stone's role, however, is rather superfluous to the play as a whole. It is Rush's show, and one that he embraces fully. The plot is thin enough: Tired of the insignificance of the bureaucracy in which he works and the overwhelming nature of the world, Poprishchin begins to buy into his own fantastical notions. As he performs his diary entries for the audience, his flights of fancy get increasingly ludicrous.
The acting here is key, and Rush, to his credit, abandons all his Oscar-nominated decorum to dive into the role of the madman with great aplomb. He lets loose completely as he exacts great verbal and physical precision to slowly transform the outrageous comedy from poignant to tragic as Poprishchin descends further into madness.
The play itself, based on one of Nikolai Gogol's short stories, is adapted for the stage by Rush, playwright David Holman and director Neil Armfield. The production was originally staged in Australia by the Belvoir theater company (known for their recent Broadway production of Ionesco's "Exit the King," which won Rush a Tony two years ago).
The bright splashes of color and shadow surrounding Poprishchin (thanks to set designer Catherine Martin and lighting designer Mark Shelton) and the jauntiness and wittiness of the music (by Alan John, after Mussorgsky) contribute to the theater's ostentatious air. The musicians' winks to the audience add to the play's meta-theatricality.
But despite Rush's acting chops and complete commitment to the role, the sad clown never fully matures into a full-fledged character. We believe that he is truly insane and a victim of his pitiable situation, but we never gain insight into Poprishchin's thinking. Unlike "A Streetcar Named Desire's" Blanche DuBois, he is not someone with whom we relate; rather, he is simply the object of our pity.
"Diary of a Madman" runs through March 12 at the BAM Harvey Theater on 651 Fulton St. in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. Tickets are priced at $25 to $95, and very limited availability remains. Call Ticket Services at 718.636.4100 for inquiries.
