ETHER IS NEITHER/NOR
A dramaturgical mess, Elizabeth Egloff’s strangely shapeless historical drama about the mid-19th-century advent of ether as an anesthesia contains a fascinating story but lacks clear protagonists and precisely drawn characters. With a sprawling number of roles played by a 16-member ensemble, Ether Dome (the name given to the operating theater of Boston’s Massachusetts General Hospital) concerns the momentous occasion when dentist William Morton first publicly demonstrated the use of inhaled ether as a surgical anesthetic in 1846. The intrigue here is that Morton’s pursuit of credit for and profit from the administration of ether was complicated by the furtive and sometimes deceptive tactics he employed during its development, as well as by the competing claims of other doctors, most notably his former mentor, Dr. Charles Jackson.
Unfortunately, this really isn’t Morton’s story. It’s everybody’s story. Given equal weight are Morton’s partner and former teacher, Horace Wells, a dentist who discovered the use of laughing gas as an anesthetic; John Warren, the renowned head of surgery at Mass General who performed a painless tumorectomy after giving Morton permission to administer ether; and Jackson, portrayed here as a spineless chemist who faints during surgery and inexplicably becomes afflicted with mental illness. Each man teems with such a treasure trove of traits that he merits his own play.
I admire Egloff’s attempt to bring in universal themes involving science, philanthropy, discovery, and credit, but they become as ethereal as her subject matter. Her rambling stereopticon-slide narrative (with many short filmic scenes abruptly ending just as our interest begins to build) includes a prostitute, insanity, an abandoned wife, a showman in a traveling circus, a wealthy old dowager, and plenty of cursory characters such a famous conchologist and the nephew to the Emperor of France. And then there is that Woman in White who represents either chloroform addiction or the Angel of Death. It seems like Egloff is going for the Nicholas Nickleby of ether, but she ends up with a series of forced and unfocused reenactments with the kind of implausible dialogue and overabundance of facts one would see on the History Channel.
Equally peculiar is that Ether Dome saw its world premiere at the Alley Theatre in Houston three years ago, but neither Egloff nor director Michael Wilson have yet performed the dramaturgical surgery necessary to bring the script to life. It’s a shame that the two other co-producers, Hartford Stage and Huntington Theatre Company, are presenting in Sep. and Oct., respectively, the same production with the same lead actors (it was during Wilson’s tenure as Artistic Director that Egloff was commissioned by Hartford Stage to write the script): This is one experiment which should be taken back to the drawing board.
photos by Kevin Berne
Ether Dome
La Jolla Playhouse
run ends on August 10, 2014
for tickets, call (858) 550-1010
or visit www.LaJollaPlayhouse.org
