The Language of Supermen

ORANGE — In 1951, a significant theater event occurred in New York: the world premiere of “Don Juan in Hell.” As one act of George Bernard Shaw’s immense 1903 “Man and Superman,” it had rarely been included in performances of the longer play.

The First Drama Quartet performed “Don Juan” in formal evening dress, reading the script from behind four music stands. With that innovative staging, Charles Boyer, Sir Cedric Hardwicke, Agnes Moorehead and director-actor Charles Laughton made theater history.

Shakespeare Orange County is attempting the same feat, under the direction of company member Carl Reggiardo. He too has put his cast in evening dress, behind lecterns holding scripts. Occasionally the actors step out for individual scenes.

His lineup includes John-Frederick Jones as the Devil, Maria Pavone as Dona Ana, Daniel Bryan Cartmell as the Statue (or the Commander) and Tom Whyte as Don Juan. As Don Juan has been wrestling with the Devil and others, this quartet has been wrangling with the intricacies of Shaw’s writing.

“You struggle with, fight with the language and then find yourself embracing it after a while,” Reggiardo said. “You have to dig into it. . . . Why were these particular words used? Look how the phrasing changes in different areas, how the sentences become longer and longer in different parts of the play as the emotions become higher and higher. It’s fascinating.”

The company’s work centers around language, and Shaw, like Shakespeare, had it mastered. For Reggiardo, who first encountered “Don Juan” in college, the play presented itself as an ideal companion to Shakespeare Orange County’s current production--”The Merchant of Venice,” in which he plays the title role.

*

The musical quality of Shaw’s writing, who had begun his career as a music critic, also intrigued the director. He recalls reading about rehearsals in which Shaw, also a director, would give the actors notes based on musical detail, almost conducting the language.

“ ‘You start at this level,’ Shaw would say, ‘then you come up a half-octave at this point.’ ”

Reggiardo agrees with the technique. “It is like music,” he said. “To really succeed with it, like Shakespeare sometimes, you have to realize you’re listening to language, but you have some of the impact of music.”

At Shakespeare O.C., the cast dedicated itself, the director said, to discovering the music, and the ideas, in the words. Shaw loved public speaking and grabbed every opportunity to influence people.

The playwright’s socialist leanings are less obvious in his plays than might be expected. He does talk about women’s rights, in which he firmly believed, about the dangers of militarism, about realistic living wages, about the inequities of the marriage contract.

And he extolled romance, the concept of it at least, and the profundity of idealism, which he always found lacking.

At 94, “Don Juan” still resonates, Reggiardo said.

Chuckling, he added: “I’m not trying to sell a ticket when I also say how humorous Shaw is. He’s continuously witty, as was part of the style of the time, like Oscar Wilde and Somerset Maugham.

“Insightfully funny--it’s not humor that’s just a laugh or a gag. It’s thoughtful humor. In the play, even Hell is funny. It’s certainly serious at times, but Hell is funny for a good deal of the time.”

* “Don Juan in Hell,” Waltmar Theatre, Chapman University, at the corner Palm and Center streets, Orange. Thursday-Saturday, 8 p.m.; Sunday, 3 p.m. Ends Sept 6. $22-$24. (714) 744-7016.