Theater Review - Bach at Leipzig: Ticklish

Aurora Theatre gets keyed up

Some subjects provide universal sources for humor, such as sexual tension or fussy babies. (In fact, the latter can be the punch line for the former.) Young playwright Itamar Moses brazenly seeks out comedy in such topics as musical fugues, the religious concept of predestination and the mathematics of Leibniz in his comedy Bach at Leipzig. Lawrenceville’s Aurora Theatre deserves all due credit for staging a comedy that risks whizzing over the head of its audience, but rewards those willing to meet it halfway.

Moses finds inspiration in the historical footnote about the fierce competition and infighting for a prestigious musical post in Leipzig, Germany, in 1722. Timeless composer Johann Sebastian Bach serves a role sort of like Godot in Waiting for Godot: He’s not really an onstage presence, despite being crucial to the action. Instead, Moses focuses on the now-forgotten contenders for the job, who form alliances and betray each other as quickly as any wannabe TV star on a reality show like “The Apprentice.”

Every musician of the time seemed to be either named “Johann” or “Georg” (a detail that Moses turns into a running gag), but sharply defined comedic traits distinguish the seven competitors, from gambler/forger Georg Lenck (Dan Triandiflou) to decadent aristocrat Johann Steindorff (Jeremy Aggers). Chris Ensweiler appealingly plays Johann Fasch, who’s not exactly the “good guy” of the play, but the least dishonest among the cutthroat composers, despite his unwitting fondness for opium. At times he launches into furious debates with Georg Schott (a hilariously imperious Al Stilo) over such topics as musical innovation vs. “godly” traditionalism. Despite the highfalutin’ content, Bach at Leipzig maintains the snappy pace of a Marx Brothers movie, although some of the repartee sounds dusty: “Lenck intends to bribe his way into the post.” “You don’t say!” “I just did.”

At the beginning of Act Two, Fasch describes the structure of a musical fugue, and the audience watches a speeded-up, mute version of Act One, discovering that the play’s first half served as a kind of nonmusical fugue. During satisfyingly smart moments such as these, director Danielle Mindess never seems intimidated by the play’s most erudite sequences, and the actors never emphasize physical comedy over the content. About 10 years ago, I remember seeing a local production of The Real Inspector Hound by Tom Stoppard (clearly a major influence on Moses), and the cast pushed the slapstick so hard that the play’s subtleties were completely flattened. Aurora’s production clearly “gets” this brand of humor.

With Bach at Leipzig, Moses comes across as an apprentice version of Tom Stoppard, whose graduate-student head games usually contain deeper, more pessimistic implications about the human condition. Bach at Leipzig turns out to be a much lighter exercise in music appreciation and historical biography, but at least Mindess and the cast tickle our funny bones as adeptly as the play’s musicians can tickle the ivories.

Bach at Leipzig. Through Oct. 28. $22-$25. Thurs.-Fri., 8 p.m.; Sat., 2:30 and 8 p.m.; Sun., 2:30 p.m. Aurora Theatre, 128 E. Pike St., Lawrenceville. 770-476-7926. www.auroratheatre.com.