Underneath the Lintel: is no da vinci code

If you’re planning to see Underneath the Lintel, currently on as part of the Chutzpah Festival, you may wish to look away now…

I never thought I’d be put in a position to defend the Da Vinci Code in public – but here we go. In the publicity material for this Frankie production, there is a review quote that states that Underneath the Lintel, by Glen Berger, is superior to the Da Vinci Code. Well, I’ve read the Da Vinci Code and Underneath the Lintel is no Da Vinci Code. At the core of Dan Brown’s book is a loopy premise but at least the thematic stuff – that the Catholic Church wilfully destroyed the feminine half of its faith – is compelling. And while the writing itself is no more than pot-boiler, the storyline grabs and the reader is compelled to rush through the book to find out what happens next. It’s a master-class in plot structure.

Not so with Underneath the Lintel. The premise is similar: a man (a librarian rather than an academic) has a mystery land in his lap (a book 113 years overdue is shot through the night return slot), which takes him on a journey around the world.  As the clues for the identity of the mysterious borrower start to pile up – literally – on stage, the Librarian, played by Christian Murray, finds that he is tracking down an individual who will remain elusively out of reach: the Wandering Jew. Even with my quick description, I’m making the play sound more engaging than it really is. Although it plays with some compelling ideas, this one-man show is inherently static and passive. Every incident it relates has occurred in the past (one of the biggest challenges any one person show faces) and there is no dramatic forward movement – instead we just plod through the evidence – and the whole thing feels more like a short-story than theatre.

I was shocked to learn how successful this play – originally produced in 2001 – has been off-Broadway and how it was even used as a star vehicle in the West End for Richard Shiff. I think the worst thing you can say about this current production, directed by Mary Vingoe, is that it’s workman like and, to be honest, I don’t know how anyone could have breathed life into this plodding bore. I suspect that the character of the Librarian should have been far more intense and neurotic than Murray’s bumbling clown and this might have given a bit of juice to the proceedings as we would have seen more clearly a character whose ordered world is undermined by an encounter with the legendary.

The only time I found myself engaged with this play was when the story of the Wandering Jew was first introduced. I felt a curious sense of unease overcome me as I tried to remember the story. My recollection was that it is basically an anti-Semitic fairytale. When the Librarian then explains the legend to the audience – in this version, a Jewish cobbler didn’t help Jesus as he stumbled with the cross and is therefore cursed by God to wander the earth, unable to rest, until the second coming – a moment of deep weirdness descended into the Norman Rothstein Theatre - at least for me. Here we were, watching a play in the Jewish Community Centre as part of Chutzpah that was exploring a parable about why the Jews were, in effect, cast out of society.  I wondered how the play would resolve this tension. Would it reinvent the legend? Would it reclaim the story from a Jewish perspective?

Um, no, it wouldn’t.

So, I was left a bit curious as to why the Festival programmed this piece. Perhaps I missed something, but it seems to me that Underneath the Lintel confirms the story of Christ and also that the Jews have faced centures of trouble because God is punishing them for their refusal to recognize the Messiah. And here all this time I thought it was simply racism.

Underneath the Lintel continues until March 20th. For more information go here.