Think of it as A CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES’ GREATEST HITS.
John Kennedy Toole’s magnificently funny novel contains 338 pages and offers at least as many laughs. How many could playwright Jeffrey Hatcher possibly be expected to get them all in his attempt to bring the book to the stage?
That’s the question I had while reading Toole’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, just days before I attended Hatcher’s adaptation at the Huntington Theatre Company of Boston.
Would I hear and see the Toole sequence that had me laughing for days, even at three in the morning while in bed – awake because I couldn’t stop thinking of this hilarious incident?
As it turned out, no, Hatcher didn’t include it.
But I unconditionally forgive him. He’s captured so many of Toole’s hilarious episodes and insights that I’ll judge the glass – nay, industrial-sized tank – as far, far more than nine-tenths full.
What’s more impressive in this marvelous theatrical event is that Hatcher has created lines of dialogue that are not in the book but ones that are in total keeping with the main character’s voice. Only those who know the novel would be able to discern what is Toole and what is Hatcher — proof that the playwright was indeed in tune with Ignatius J. Reilly.
If you know the novel (and if you don’t, you MUST), you might view that last remark as a left-handed compliment. Who would want to be considered in sync with Toole’s quasi-anti-hero? Ignatius J. Reilly is a substantially overweight pseudo-intellectual agoraphobic snob who can’t hold a job and must still live with his mother.
The only person who comes close to understanding him is Myrna Minkoff, his girlfriend-in-name-only. But enduring Ignatius is easier when you live hundreds of miles away, haven’t seen him in years and only write an occasional letter. Nevertheless, even Myrna has her doubts about Reilly’s chances in life, as is evidenced by her statement that she wishes him “the best of all possible negative options.”
Who’d predict anything positive? Ignatius J. Reilly certainly has no social skills, for he is as grandiose as he is gross. Nick Offerman (of PARKS & RECREATION fame) hits the bull’s eye in bringing him to life.
Offerman is oh-so-condescending to all those who have less schooling than Ignatius – and that’s pretty much everyone he encounters in his native New Orleans.
Eight years in college has made Ignatius an educational overachiever, preparing him in the real world to become a good-for-nothing underachiever. CONFEDERACY can be seen as an indictment of a liberal arts education. What can you do with a B.A. — or M.A. or Ph.D. — in English? Throughout our lives, we’ve been led to believe that education is its own reward, but CONFEDERACY makes our educated minds think twice about that.
So Ignatius compensates by embellishing quite a bit, which Offerman does with acerbic skill. When Ignatius says he’s “on sabbatical,” it’s merely his euphemism for “out of work” – and Offerman lets us see below the surface that he knows the truth.
Ignatius also implies by the flamboyant way that he speaks that everyone should talk as pretentiously. Actually, his loftily approach is designed to make no one understand what he’s saying; that’s the one way that he can be one-up on everyone.
Oh, sure, Ignatius is writing what he truly believes is a magnum opus, but all that he has thus far is a bedroom floor littered with notebooks full of unorganized thoughts. We don’t get to see what’s in them, but we can easily bet that they’re full of highfalutin’ language.
Offerman is right at home dispensing Ignatius’ extraordinary vocabulary that he believes sets him above and apart from the crowd, and that has earned him the right to correct anyone’s grammar.
Offerman takes a hot dog from a vendor as if he’s Louis XIV, XV and XVI combined. After he devours it virtually whole, he sadly says “And me, without means of recompense.” Translation: “I’m broke, and can’t pay my just debts.” The lofty language is supposed to make up for the lack of cold hard cash. It doesn’t.
Another important quality that Offerman achieves is Ignatius’ ability to forgive himself every major mistake but excuse no one else for any minor infraction. The actor roars when he invokes American civil liberties at every opportunity and is ready to sue anyone for the slightest infraction — one that most of us would slough off with an indifferent “That’s life!” shrug. Today, Ignatius would be the scowling person who walks down the street with earbuds in his ears in order to say “Don’t bother me” when he really means “I know you wouldn’t want to talk to me, so I’ll make like I don’t want to talk to you first — and that’ll make me somehow seem superior to you.”
Ignatius needs to feel important, which brings in CONFEDERACY’s empathetic side. (Yes, it does have one.) Both Toole and Hatcher demonstrate how people need respect in a world that seemingly conspires to make them irrelevant. Although Toole wrote the book in the ‘60s, that theme is now timelier than ever.
The author was ahead of his time in another way. Pre-Stonewall, few writers took us into the gay world, but Toole did. So does Hatcher, which allows Arnie Burton to play the fey Dorian Greene who takes one look at the mountainous Ignatius and utters “You big thing!”
Lest we wonder and worry that Offerman has gained a hundred or so pounds, director David Esbjornson blatantly shows him at the top of the play getting into a fat suit. The result is a chubbier-faced Mark Twain with the same permanent scowl.
Esbjornson has assembled a marvelous troupe of supporting actors and has skillfully guided them to be true to the novel, too. Burton doubles as Mr. Gonzalez, the ever-so-loyal employee who is concentrating so hard when punching numbers into his adding machine that he resembles a squirrel protecting his nuts. Good thing for his boss that Gonzalez is devoted, because no one on the premises is. One point that CONFEDERACY effectively makes is that anyone can get a menial job if he wants one, but once hired, an employee might not do what’s expected and will become an utter waste of money. It IS hard to get good help nowadays, isn’t it?
That’s where Julie Halston comes in — and aren’t we glad she does? She’s Miss Trixie, who may not be a dipsomaniac, but she can certainly pass for one. Halston establishes Trixie’s uselessness and her sense of entitlement. Because she’s been on the job for decades, no one even notices her anymore, and if someone did, he couldn’t muster the energy to fire her. Such a role is tailor-made for Halston, our finest purveyor of eccentrics. And yet, Halston’s funniest moment comes when she’s told “You’re a very attractive woman.” Her head moves back as if hit by lightning, for the woebegone Trixie certainly never expected to hear that remark from anyone.
Playing Ignatius’ mother Irene is the indefatigable Anita Gillette. Because she’s a good 18 inches shorter than Offerman, she seems to be playing Fay Wray to his King Kong. Although Gillette conveys that, as a mother, she must love her son, the disgust with which her hands wave him away tells us how she really feels.
Gillette can play dithery, especially when relating the story of Ignatius’ conception and punctuating it with a drink. After she refuses after totally dismissing a friend’s suggestion to put Ignatius in an insane asylum, Gillette shows a true pro’s perfect timing in rallying and saying in brass-tacks fashion “How much does it cost?”
So there’s plenty of audience laughter ranging from appreciative to hearty. Yes, many laughs seemed to be those of recognition from fans of the book. Be grateful that Hatcher has allowed those who’d read CONFEDERACY long ago to reconnect with the hilarious journey they once took with Toole.
In an age when some famous movies become redundant Broadway plays (THE GRADUATE, BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S, JUDGMENT AT NUREMBERG), one of our most illustrious regional theater reverses the process with A CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES. There have been at least four serious attempts to make a film by established Hollywood pros – including Harold Ramis, John Waters and Steven Soderbergh – but it took Hatcher, Esbjornson and The Huntington Theatre Company to get it on.
Toole committed suicide in 1969 because, as his mother Thelma always maintained, he was discouraged that his novel couldn’t get into print. She was the one who approached publisher after publisher until she found one enthusiastic enough to bring it out. That happened in 1980, only four years before Mrs. Toole died. At least she saw the novel’s success and the Pulitzer Prize. Still, it’s a shame that both mother and son can’t be here to witness the marvelous stage version of A CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES.
