Theater Review : With Whitman at Helm, ‘Mast’ Aims for Humor

DANA POINT — Walking on board the tall ship Pilgrim, moored in the harbor here, to watch “Two Years Before the Mast” offers proof that Southern California theater has a way of combining environmental theater and tourist attraction.

At a place that floats, has no real stage and is made of wood, rope and canvas, actor Jeffrey Whitman has assumed the one-man role from Daniel Trent, who died of AIDS complications several months ago and had played Richard Henry Dana Jr. since 1981. Whitman, with this you-are-there take on Dana’s high-seas literary report, has given the role a fresh, invigorating face.

Aided by several rehearsal sessions with Trent before his death, Whitman has made Trent’s and Victor Pinheiro’s adaptation of Dana’s 1840 maritime classic his own.

It only feels as if Whitman has rewritten the script, which still depicts Dana as the aging, world-famous author revisiting his beloved San Francisco in 1859 to speak before the Pioneer Society of California. At first, Dana’s not sure if he’s in the right room, but once he starts going, the talk takes us back to the young man, straight out of Harvard and hungry for adventure in 1835.

The adaptation’s framing is slightly hackneyed, but it’s above all a wonderful actor’s device, as Whitman dresses down from Victorian-style finery to sailor’s garb in front of our eyes. Unlike most pieces of American theater, “Two Years Before the Mast” is happy to constantly remind the audience that it is watching an artificial re-creation by an actor. The feeling is only heightened here by realizing that we’re on a re-created ship.

Thus we have illusion and fakery on one hand, a narrative about harsh realities of life at sea on the other. Dana’s book, like Mark Twain’s account of life of the Mississippi, has become part of romantic American lore, and this script does little to take away the romance.

Whitman, like Trent, still defuses the animating passion of Dana’s book, which was to press for American-style justice on ships carrying the U.S. flag. The captain at the helm of the real Pilgrim was a beast, and Dana saw him gnaw away at innocent men like captive prey. Like Upton Sinclair’s critique of the meat industry in “The Jungle,” “Two Years” was a rare book that actually forced legislation.

We don’t get passion at Dana Point harbor.

Instead, we get a witty, thoughtful interpretation by Whitman, whose age-to-youth transformation is more complete and more amusing than Trent’s. The whole performance, in fact, is charged with a humor the play never had before. Trent was after the whiff of living history; Whitman is interested in exploring a pretty contradictory character, an intellectual daredevil, a man obsessed with testing his limits. Dana is slightly ridiculous, and Whitman enjoys making fun of him. With a little more tweaking, this could be a flat-out comedy.

As it is, Whitman’s version is amusing, with dramatic insertions. His staging contains a lot of pretty fair miming of sailoring action. But it gets muddied when Whitman shifts between characters in dialogue and confrontation scenes. The second pair of eyes of a director could help here.

Otherwise, this is a solid actor’s statement, as well as a kind of homage from one actor to another. The new actor has made the work his own and deepened it as well, but he couldn’t have done it without the late actor’s work. AIDS has wiped out theater talent like nothing else, but it isn’t wiping out theater.

* “Two Years Before the Mast,” aboard the Pilgrim at Orange County Marine Institute, 24200 Dana Point Harbor Drive, Dana Point. Saturdays at 6:30 and 8:30 p.m. July 21 at 6:30 p.m. and Aug. 4 at 6:30 and 8:30 p.m. Ends Aug. 5. $15 to $20. (714) 496-2274. Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes. Jeffrey Whitman: Richard Henry Dana Jr.

A production of Richard Henry Dana’s book, adapted by Daniel Trent and Victor Pinheiro. Directed by Trent.