By Bob Goepfert , The Record  07/17/2003 
 
STOCKBRIDGE, Mass. - "The Stillborn Lover," being offered at the Berkshire Theatre Festival through July 26, is the American premiere of a play that takes place in the middle of the Cold War. 

The Record
STOCKBRIDGE, Mass. - "The Stillborn Lover," being offered at the Berkshire Theatre Festival through July 26, is the American premiere of a play that takes place in the middle of the Cold War.
It revolves around the Canadian Ambassador to Russia and his possible involvement in a murder that took place in Moscow.
The most important thing to know about the play is that most of the characters are diplomats or members of the family of diplomats.
They all speak the diplomatic language - which insists that nothing can be said directly if it is at all possible to speak around the subject.
This results in an hour-long first act. That is not ridiculously long, but it certainly seems so when all that happens is the revelation of a fact that becomes evident to the audience in about five minutes.
I'll save you some time. That way you don't have to arrive until the second act - which is slightly better than the drawn-out first segment.
The ambassador is gay, and the young man who was murdered was his lover.
This isn't really spoiling the show. Indeed, it's the point of the show. The major theme in the play is how a good, hard working honorable man is made to suffer for something not related to his work or his patriotism.
Indeed, when "The Stillborn Lover" focuses on the issue of Harry Raymond's right to a private life, it is an interesting piece of theater.
It is one of the few times these terribly, terribly, reserved people permit themselves any emotion. At other times, they are so busy being careful, constructing every sentence and measuring every thought, that they become tedious. So does the play.
It's too bad the characters are so rigid, as playwright Timothy Findley has some very interesting things to say.
Through Harry, he shows us a noble man who suffers many professional indignities that compound the tragedy of living a secret life - one that he describes as "death by denial.
When it is revealed that Harry is gay, he becomes a liability and a disappointment to all. His country forsakes him, his friends disown him and his daughter feels betrayed by him.
Even though Harry's career and his entire life collapse, the man has the courage to maintain his dignity and self-respect.
That's because he is secure in the knowledge that he has lived life as a decent man and is a valuable asset to his country. He shows a quiet, heroic courage that is seldom found in modern plays.
Unfortunately, this moral stance consumes only about a half-hour of a two and a half-hour work.
The rest of the play deals with the corruption of bureaucracy and trying to show that the good guys in a democratic government aren't much different from the bad guys in a totalitarian state.
Richard Chamberlain would seem an ideal actor to play Harry Raymond. There are few actors who play calm sophistication better than Chamberlain, and certainly the actor's recent revelations about his own private life would make the role seem a hand-in-glove fit.
He finds dignity in the low-keyed Raymond, and his restrained acting style seems perfect for the life-long diplomat who has frequently kept his opinions to himself for the good of his country.
However, Chamberlain plays the man with one-note. Even his righteous outbursts of anger seem more intellectually based than they are emotionally driven.
Lois Nettleton has some good moments with Raymond's wife, Marion. Her character is in the early stages of Alzheimer's, which permits her moments of clarity and longer periods of disoriented behavior.
Nettleton does a good job in balancing the two, and despite the fact that Alzheimer's infliction has become a convenient and trite dramatic device, she finds dignity in the woman's problem.
Indeed, the relationship between Marion - who has always known about her husband's secret - and Harry is one of the nicest love stories to be shown on stage in quite a while. When she says, "Love does what it must," she explains her behavior as well as Harry's.
Keir Dullea plays a stock figure with the role of Michael Riordon, Harry's waffling friend who lusts to be Canada's next prime minister.
He does what the role demands, which is little more than to utter pompous, mysterious statements. Jessica Walters as his wife, Juliet, has an even weaker role and does not fare any better than Dullea.
Jennifer Van Dyke is a bit too strident as the Raymond's daughter in another underdeveloped role. However, she does create a complex character who turns out to be one of the most interesting characters in the play.
Her scenes with Robert Emmet Lunney, who plays Superintendent Jackman, the man investigating the Moscow murder for the Canadian authorities, are among the best in the show.
Lunney also makes something out of stereotype, as he is able to mix humor and irony with a threat of menace.
Kaleo Griffith is asked to do little more than play a hunk, which he does effectively - even including baring all in a gratuitous full-frontal nude scene.
Martin Rabbett's direction adds little except for a high amount of pretension. He directs the piece as if it were a tense Edward Albee psychological study.
He constantly freezes characters, leaving them out of action in which they should be involved and at other times has people who should be off stage stay to create clutter. His most grievous flaw is setting a dull pace that is as tedious as most of the characters.
Michael Downs' set combines with Fabrice Kebour's dramatic lighting to create an always-changing environment for the show's action and its moods.
The two prove that set design and lighting are codependent in any production.
"The Stillborn Lover" is a term Harry Raymond uses to describe his relationship with a male with whom he never consummated his love. It also describes his relationship with his loving wife.
Sadly, it could be used to describe the disappointment found in this production, which, despite many good qualities, has little future.