'Shipwrecked! An Entertainment' by Donald Margulies

Louis de Rougemont (Greg Wood) enters the theater, this “temple of the imagination,” with a smile, asking if we are “ready to be astonished,” and we are. And what astonishes us are not special effects or elaborate gimmicks, but just a rollicking good yarn told with such good humor that we are willing to suspend disbelief and go along for the ride.

De Rougemont tells a tale of setting out to sea in 1869, diving for pearls, encountering a giant octopus, being shipwrecked on an island till he rescues aborigines from a nearby island, marrying, having children, and then returning to London 30 years later. Based on actual events and told with liberal creative license, the play first woos us with a fantastical story and then deconstructs it before our eyes. De Rougemont is first made a celebrity, then torn to shreds when his story doesn’t hold up — something all too familiar today.

Wood seduces us with his sheer happiness, even as he recounts times of starvation and struggle, long periods of isolation with only Bruno, his faithful dog (David Bradley Johnson) by his side. And though we know that Johnson is not a dog, he conveys such an essence of dogginess that we want to go up and pet him ourselves.

Queen Victoria and a giant sea turtle

Johnson, along with Bi Jean Ngo, plays a variety of parts alongside Wood’s de Rougemont. We accept them all not as caricatures, but as though they might really be a London mother, an aborigine father and daughter, even Queen Victoria and a giant sea turtle. The characters provide the antidote to de Rougemont’s loneliness and isolation, and with the tilt of a head, the change of accent, a fancy headdress, a bib that might be a young boy, the performers become whoever we are told they are.

We want to believe this tale. De Rougemont believes it, and is so darn happy to have survived it, that we don’t even question its truth. And how would we know whether it’s possible to ride on the back of a sea turtle or not?

What’s the harm in a little lie, we may ask ourselves. Perhaps nothing in the theater where we go to be told fantastical stories.

The consequences of fantasy

But telling fantasies can have consequences. In EgoPo’s currently running The Children’s Hour, a much less benign lie, a lie about others, has the power to destroy lives. Think about the distortions we accept as truth every day. Is climate change real or a fiction, and what are the consequences of believing one thing or another? Is the Bible a fantasy or a historical document? Is there such a thing as God? Is what we hear daily on the news the truth, the partial truth, or just a fiction designed to fit our preconceptions?

Shipwrecked! doesn’t deal with such weighty questions. It draws us into de Rougemont’s world, carrying us to the other side of the world and back again with nothing more than a few props (scenic design by Glen Sears, costume design by Amanda Wolff), a few sound effects (sound design by Zachary Beattie-Brown), and some talented actors who are there to entertain us for a while.