Philadelphia Artists' Collective presents 'Maria Marten, or, The Murder in the Red Barn'

Stylistically, director Charlotte Northeast aims for verisimilitude tinged with tongue-in-cheek modern awareness. The Louis Bluver Theatre at the Drake has been fitted with a false proscenium (designed by Brian McCann, who also acts in the ensemble) and a half-dozen painted scrims to signify the various country locales described in the script. This creates the effect of a traveling troupe who could pack up their scenery and move on to a new town at a moment’s notice.

Musician Andrew Clotworthy underscores nearly every moment of action from the piano, unsubtly instructing the audience as to which characters are virtuous or villainous. As is often the case in melodrama, little is left to the imagination.

Early true crime

In a program note, Northeast shares her belief that the play was collaboratively written, a hypothesis supported by the large ensemble required for performance and by the various styles that bump against each other. PAC supplies a game company of eight players who throw themselves into the material — not always successfully, but with joyful abandon.

The play draws from a true story that fascinated England in the 1830s; think of it as ur–true crime. Maria (Victoria Aaliyah Goins), a pure-hearted molecatcher’s daughter, finds herself taken in by wealthy, unscrupulous William Corder (Dan Hodge). She bears his child and believes his promise of marriage before meeting an untimely end in the titular outbuilding.

Other amusements surround the sad central story. Maria’s sister Anne (Sarah Knittel) and her dimwitted fiancé, Tim Bobbin (Damon Bonetti), provide comic relief, liberally dispensing pratfalls and double entendres.

The presence of a soothsayer (Monroe Barrick) engages in the era’s fascination with the supernatural. But the mystic also matters to the plot — his daughter was a prior victim of Corder’s treachery, and he swears revenge.

These elements create a motley evening that can certainly seem overstuffed. Vaudevillian sketches — which also include McCann and Trina Tjersland as carnival barkers and Devon Sinclair tarted up as the world’s largest woman — wear out their welcome quickly, particularly when their jokes become apparent long before the punchline lands. Still, the performers show admirable commitment to the material.

Evil twins

The production really cooks whenever Goins and Hodge take center stage. Both display an innate understanding of melodramatic acting tropes that elevate their performances beyond caricature. Robert A. Thorpe and James P. Lewis’s eerily intimate lighting aids in the creation of their characters, providing a chiaroscuro that paints Maria in purity and reveals Corder’s depravity.

With a beautifully expressive face and lilting voice, Goins captures Maria’s sweetly trusting nature. You shudder, as you should, to think of the sad end that will befall her. Meanwhile, Hodge courts boos and hisses with wanton abandon, unafraid to play truly wicked. He may be fitted with a permanently arched eyebrow and a mustache that practically twirls itself, but this is a character who sinks to true depths of darkness.

Hodge and Bonetti, PAC co-founders, are trading off the roles of Corder and Bobbin; their opening-night assignments were chosen based on an online poll. In some ways, they reflected miscasting: Bonetti’s handsome suavity suits Corder’s darkly alluring nature, while Hodge has often proved himself a game comedian. Yet playing against type often forces an actor to work harder, which surely seems the case here; they both excel. I hope to return and see the roles reversed.

Maria Marten joins a long line of theatrical curiosities inventively presented by PAC since their 2008 inception. The company provides a service by dusting off these old chestnuts and showing how much worth they retain. Northeast and company show that smart direction and skilled performance never go out of style.

To read Cara Blouin's review, click here.