The extraordinary production of “The Cider House Rules” on view here through Sept. 27 has its roots in an overwhelming, elemental need in classic theater: the itch to tell a story.
It began in 1985 with the publication of John Irving’s 586-page novel, an attempt by the brawny author of “The World According to Garp” and “The Hotel New Hampshire” to bring the incredible incident, rich characterization and burning social concerns of 19th Century English novels smack into the arena of 20th Century America.
It continued five years ago, when the actors Tom Hulce and Jane Jones and playwright Peter Parnell started a long, dedicated, diligent process of fashioning a stage adaptation of the novel.
As Charles Dickens had been an inspiration for Irving, the Royal Shakespeare Company’s adaptation of Dickens’ “The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby” was the inspiration for Hulce, Jones and Parnell.
The method “Nicholas Nickelby” used, and the method Hulce, Jones and Parnell also adopted in transferring Irving’s book to the stage, was story theater, a form of drama pioneered by director Paul Sills in Chicago in the 1960s. In it, a play’s actors serve as both narrators and characters in their story. They quote directly from the author’s descriptions and then jump immediately into the roles they have been describing.
In Irving’s story, covering a century up to the 1950s, the stage collaborators found the same kind of distinctive gift for dazzling plotting, revealing detail and eccentric character that had distinguished Dickens’ novels, and they applied to it the same intense, loving care that the RSC had lavished on its landmark “Nicholas Nickleby.”
Prepared in a series of workshops under the direction of Hulce and Jones, the resulting two-part work had an eventful full production in 1996 and 1997 at the not-for-profit Seattle Repertory Theatre, where it was rapturously received by critics and audiences.
This summer, its length trimmed through more workshop sessions to a total of six hours (three hours for each half), “The Cider House Rules” opened on the thrust stage of the not-for-profit Mark Taper Forum of Los Angeles, where the critical reaction has been mixed.
If the play disappoints, however, it is only because one wants even more than it already gives.
What it does have in abundance are some stunning portrayals, played almost as if the characters had walked out directly from the page to the stage. There also are several marvelous theatrical strokes, many of them achieved through the striking effects created by lighting design genius James F. Ingalls. And, above all, the production has, as a driving force, the compelling music of Irving’s intricate, muscular narrative.
His story concerns two principals: Dr. Wilbur Larch, saintly proprietor of an orphanage in a forsaken Maine mill town, and his beloved young protege, the orphan Homer Wells, who learns from Larch the medical techniques of obstetrician and abortionist.
“He (Larch) was an obstetrician,” Irving writes. “He delivered babies into the world. His colleagues called this `the Lord’s work.’ And he was an abortionist; he delivered mothers, too. His colleagues called this `the Devil’s work,’ but it was all the Lord’s work to Wilbur Larch. . . . He would deliver babies. He would deliver mothers, too.”
But neither the novel nor the play, while being pro-choice, is a polemic. The story depicts lesbian love, but does not espouse it. Dr. Larch’s history and philosophy are part of a broad, generous story that covers a wide territory and embraces a gallery of memorable characters, some as eccentric and endearing as any created by Dickens himself.
More than 100 roles are taken by the cast’s 22 actors, whose actions are backed by folk musicians playing a variety of instruments.
The production is sparingly — a little too sparingly — designed by John Arnone on two playing levels, with a series of wooden doors and panels sliding off and on to change the setting from hospital dormitory to apple orchard cider house and dozens of other locations.
At the core of the drama are Michael Winters. a veteran Seattle actor, as the kindly, determined Dr. Larch, and Josh Hamilton, who, as Homer Wells, moves convincingly from innocent youth to mature healer.
Around them are several gifted actors giving life to Irving’s complex, comic characters: Jane Carr and Brenda Wehle as Larch’s doting nurses Edna and Angela; Jayne Taini as the buxom head of the orphanage’s girls dorm; Tom Beyer as both a frail male orphan and a fluttery female one; and, most astoundingly, Jillian Armenante as Melony, the rough, highly physical and terribly bruised soul who ferociously trails Homer through his adventures.
Well into its last half, “The Cider House Rules” loses some of its energy and imagination in a prolonged interracial love story. But then, in a final Dickensian burst in which plot lines are tied together and characters return home from their journeys, the play reaches a happy, fulfilling finale of love and affection. At this point, the audience, having spent six hours with the actors on this theatrical odyssey, erupts with a standing ovation.
In the end, “The Cider House Rules” does not have quite the storytelling genius of “Great Expectations” or “Jane Eyre” (two books widely quoted in the novel). Nor does it altogether possess the theatrical richness of its “Nicholas Nickleby” ancestor.
There could and probably should be more here, in everything from scenic design to narrative invention.
Nevertheless, that still leaves us with a big, ambitious work, graced with remarkable moments, peppered with full-bodied portrayals, and powered with a kind and generous heart.
