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Ernest Hemingway classic about the Lost Generation sometimes turns cartoonish

BY MICHAEL SOMMERS

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

OFF BROADWAY REVIEW

In recent seasons, Elevator Repair Service has provided imaginative stage renditions of famous American novels, including William Faulkner’s “The Sound and the Fury” and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby.”

Now the company makes another page-to-stage leap with Ernest Hemingway in “The Select (The Sun Also Rises),” which New York Theatre Workshop opened at its same-named theater on Sunday.

The first portion of the title refers to a Paris bistro, The Select, which is among the many watering holes frequented by the characters in Hemingway’s 1925 novel about disillusioned American and British souls aimlessly drowning their post-war sorrows.

As developed by the ensemble and staged by director John Collins, the story unfolds entirely within the setting of a well-worn Paris bar-room – all ruddy woodwork and saffron stucco walls – that also serves as various locations in France and Spain. Later, one of the bistro’s long trestle tables is turned into the raging bull for a climactic scene involving a matador.

Unlike the company’s “Gatz,” which employed every single word in Fitzgerald’s book, “The Select” is a wisely selective adaptation of “The Sun Also Rises.” While retaining the novel’s structure as its people feverishly waste their lives in Paris, Pamplona and places between, Hemingway’s descriptive passages of scenery and travel have mostly been eliminated. The production still clocks in at a bit more than three hours and 30 minutes (including intermission).

Hemingway aficionados will be pleased to see how beautifully his spare prose and dialogue functions in the raffish, flexible environs of the company’s evocative staging. Designer David Zinn’s mellow setting adapts easily to intimate moments and busier occasions like the bullfight, thanks both to Mark Barton’s lighting and the sometimes effective, somewhat tricky sound design by Matt Tierney and Ben Williams.

Like the repeated aural gags involving crashing glass and glug-glugging pours of wine, occasional outbursts of wild choreography punctuate the 1920s story with anachronistic energy. The big bar-room brawl sequence is rendered with super-hero soundtrack effects and stylized movement.

These and other silly segments sporadically jar against the sincere nature of much of the performance. Perhaps the company is trying to inject an ironic edginess into their proceedings. Too bad it usually comes across as more smarty-pants than smart. Fortunately for viewers, these cartoonish excesses do not overwhelm the production.

Dressed by Zinn in apparel that blurs the Twenties with the present day, a 10-member company invests great energy into their acting (usually portraying multiple characters). Mike Iveson flashes a sweet, sad smile and easygoing friendliness as the narrator, Jake, who cannot physically consummate his romance with alluring Lady Brett Ashley, wistfully interpreted by Lucy Taylor with British accents clipped nearly as closely as her blond hair. A Barton Fink-ish look and mournful air is affected by Matt Tierney as Robert Cohn, the perennial outsider hopelessly mad about Brett. Ben Williams pumps dangerous high spirits into Jake’s American buddy, Bill. Outstanding as the tricky socialite Jordan Baker in “Gatz,” a slow-burning Susie Sokol intensely and believably depicts the boyish matador who Brett entrances.