'The Dispute' asks "What if?"

By Pamela Dyer-Smith
Theatre Arts Department

What if four children had been kept locked away in darkness and complete isolation since birth?

What if, tonight, they were to be released?

How would bodies and minds reared in darkness respond to the first words, the first lies, the first kisses?

What if you got to watch?

It's the mid-18th century,  join the Prince (Tom Linder) and his intended Hermiane (Janine Miskulin) in the "wilderness" of a formal French garden to settle the age-old dispute:  who committed the first infidelity, man or woman?  Nineteen years earlier, the Prince's father, a man with a bent for scientific empiricism, decided to stage an experiment that would decide the question once and for all.  He would act as divine creator, in effect re-creating Eden.  He found, or rather likely kidnapped, four children - two girls (Jody Cox and Vanessa Pareda) and two boys (Cody Andrus and Miles Carignan) - had them imprisoned in separate cells, isolated from all human contact save that of their caretakers, Carise (Bree Rhodes) and Mesrou (Lionel Jones).  They have now  "come of age," tonight they are to be released upon the world, and one another; and the Prince, Hermiane, and the audience, are invited to watch.

"The Dispute" is one of Marivaux's last plays, written after he had been accepted into Paris' prestigious Académie Française and had ceased writing for the Comedie-Italienne, the resident Italian commedia dell'arte troupe for whom he had scripted more than twenty plays.

Marivaux's early works for the company were strongly Italian in flavor and exercised the talents of its actors: from the improvisatory, crude playfulness of lazzi to the graceful agility and finesse of the innamorati.  Although throughout his career he had been progressively eliminating the overt play on commedia themes and characters the Arleqin character that dominated his early comedies transformed and mutated and then disappeared entirely - their presence as a formative influence never ceased to animate his plays. 

Although no characters in "The Dispute" bear commedia names, its effect on the play is tangible - the flesh of the play is not the words, it is written between the lines, in the bodies of the actors.  It is no wonder that The Dispute failed miserably in its premiere at the Comedie-Française in 1774.  The classically trained actors accustomed to the grand verse and broad style of Moliere and Racine was not capable of finding the play's physical and emotional subtleties, its freshness and spontaneity, its sharp, and ultimately very modern, cruelty.

Ruth Griffin directs this production - the first of Neil Bartlett's translation in California -- in a physical theatre style well suited to Marivaux's writings. Griffin studied and performed with the Dell' Arte Ensemble and Theatre of Yugen. The cast has worked for weeks developing the physical strength and agility to perform this play. Thirty minutes of each rehearsal is devoted to a Pilate's workout. Gwenna Merriman's post-modern set design features a game board in shades of white with details of the 18th century.  The post-modern theme with Baroque details is carried into Dan Carrion's sound design and M.C. Drake's costumes.

Remaining performances are November 4-8 at 8 p.m. in the Arena Theatre in the Speech Arts Building. Tickets are $7 for Fresno State Students; $12 for Fresno State faculty and staff, seniors, members of the Alumni Association and students at other schools; and $14 general admission.  For more information, call the Theatre Box Office at 8-2216.