Life-or-death questions

Ariel Dorfman’s play Death and the Maiden, performed by the Luna Theater Company, is concerned with the barbarity of human torture and its impact on those involved — both victim and perpetrator. Its title, a reference to a piece of music by Schubert, invokes a world of culture and refinement.

The fact that barbarity and culture can coexist, and that civilized politics often can mask this barbarity, is what appears to disturb Dorfman.

The action takes place in the 20th century in an unnamed South American country, once under dictatorship but now transitioning into democracy.

Years earlier, a young medical student, Paulina Escobar, was kidnapped, tortured, raped and secretly detained on false charges. By a stroke of fate, many years later, she is able to confront the man she accuses of being her torturer, Dr. Roberto Miranda. What unfolds is a trip to the darker side of humanity.

The question posed in Death and the Maiden is one worth pondering because most people think they know the answer: What is justice? Justice is assurance that injustice will not be repeated. Or, justice is an ironic balance, an eye for an eye, a life for a life. Or, justice is mercy teaching humanity to the inhumane.

The play gained recognition when it premiered on Broadway, largely because of its high-profile cast — Glenn Close, Richard Dreyfuss and Gene Hackman.

In the play, Paulina has clearly been reliving her experience night and day. What initially seems to be sourness relieved with only rare moments of affection soon emerges as anger at the prospect of her husband heading a tame commission to reconcile the dictatorship’s crimes. No names will be used, and only the most severe incidents will be investigated.

The South American setting unmistakably evokes the democracy of the post-Pinochet Chile that Dorfman fled. All the action takes place at the seaside villa of Paulina and her attorney husband, Gerardo Escobar.

As drama, the play requires considerable willingness to suspend belief. Into the home of this young couple comes, by the purest happenstance, a stranger, who turns out to be — at least in the mind of the wife — the very man who had presided over her torture, rape and humiliation 10 years ago.

As the men proceed to get drunk, Paulina gains the upper hand and pistol-whips the visitor, binds him to a chair and neatly stuffs her panties in his mouth.

Thus, Dr. Miranda is put on trial, with the audience as the jury. Gerardo becomes Miranda’s defender, a role he embraces a tad too earnestly for Paulina’s taste, as he is rather anxious to believe the man’s protestations of innocence and is appalled at the idea of his wife taking justice into her own hands.

The husband is at first unwilling to believe in such a coincidence, then baffled by his wife’s capacity to respond to her torturer with physical cruelty of her own. He tries to persuade her she might be mistaken and, when that fails, to convince her that her desire for revenge is as dangerous to the establishment of a just government as was the brutal abduction and humiliation she suffered.

Revenge is impossible for Paulina, she admits. All she wants from Miranda is an honest confession, upon which, she says, she’ll let him go. If he refuses, she will kill him.

Dorfman keeps the audience guessing about whether Miranda is the right man up to the very end. Paulina might be just unhinged enough to throw doubt on her credibility, while Miranda’s claim that he was out of the country during the period in question increasingly holds water. The script presents its moral and dramatic quandary effectively, even if the strategic coincidences of the characters’ opposing ideologies and viewpoints are concocted in a terminally calculated manner.

While Americans can learn from and sympathize with the characters, the emotional impact is remote, particularly in this slowly paced production, which does little to convey the political or emotional tenor of the world of the play.

Christine Mascitti as Paulina tells her story with all the tools of an accomplished actress’ trade: a little flakiness, a little sexiness, a little stark seriousness, a range from acquiescence to rage. Rob Hargraves as Gerard and Jerry Puma as Roberto offer mixed results with performances that have the varying strength and weakness of a tropical storm.

Death and the Maiden
Through Sept. 26
Luna Theater Company
The Walnut Street Theater Studio 3
825 Walnut St.
Tickets: $20
800-692-5862
www.lunatheater.org