Sitting at his desk one morning in the Dutch town of Hoofddorp, a librarian discovers a mystery among the books dropped into the overnight return box: a raggedy travel guide that was checked out 113 years earlier. Being a dutiful bureaucrat, there is only thing for the librarian to do – find the borrower and collect what will be one heck of a late return fee. Library records offer little help in identifying the borrower other than the first initial of "A" and a post office box in China.
Curious, the efficient but very lonely librarian becomes obsessed with discovering the borrower's identity, and sets off on a life-altering adventure "to prove one life and justify another."
Although the librarian doesn't exactly achieve his first goal, he certainly does the second in Glen Berger's fascinating romp through legends, geography and history, "Underneath the Lintel," that opened this past weekend at Lansing's BoarsHead Theater.
Stylistically presented as a lecture, Berger's one-man show finds the unnamed Librarian – a stickler for details, of course – explaining to the audience his unusual quest to discover the identity of the book's borrower. The first piece of evidence the somewhat nervous Librarian reveals is an unclaimed laundry ticket from 1913 that was stuffed between the pages of the now-returned book. Admitting that he had never been far from home, he couldn't resist following the trail to London where he claimed a pair of trousers that contained the next clue: a 1912 tram ticket from Germany. With his intrigue growing, it wasn't long before the Librarian was trotting the globe in search of answers that could prove the existence of one of the world's most popular myths.
While some might call the Librarian's obsession ludicrous or absurd, what playwright Berger serves is a tasty slice of humanity topped with all its foibles. After all, who among us – in a bout of loneliness or self doubt – hasn't grabbed onto something – anything – to help pull us out of our doldrums? And I suspect MOST of us at some point have gone a bit overboard with our enthusiasm, grasped at straws to prove a point or lost focus on what we were trying to achieve.
There's far more at work in Berger's script than the mere pursuit of self-worth, however. For what he also examines is one man's struggle to accept or deny the existence of God. And while he does so in a very unique, delightful and thought-provoking way, it surely must intimidate the hell out of the actor whose job it is to bring the story to life. That's because an eighty-minute monologue with no intermission must grab its audience immediately and never let go, otherwise the audience will lose interest.
That doesn't happen with the BoarsHead production, however. Director Kristine Thatcher and actor Michael Joseph Mitchell find all of the emotional hills and valleys Berger built into the script and fill them with the appropriate levels of emphasis and energy.
Mitchell is especially good at mining every nuance he can find in Berger's script, which results in a portrayal mixed with a perfect blend of quiet subtleties and vivacious excitement. (The mostly spot-on accent occasionally makes it hard to understand bits and pieces of the dialogue, however.)
In total synch with Thatcher's direction and Mitchell's performance is Tim Jacobs' lighting design, which helps transition both the actor and the audience from one scene to the next.
'Underneath the Lintel'
BoarsHead Theater, 425 S. Grand Ave., Lansing. Wed.-Sun., through June 10. Tickets: $20-$35. For information: 517-484-7805 or http://www.boarshead.org
