Luminescence Dating

by Carey Perloff
Directed by Mark Rucker
November 29–December 23, 2006
Magic Theatre, San Francisco
http://www.magictheatre.org/jsp_index.jsp
Carey Perloff is a disciple of Tom Stoppard, having directed many of his plays in her capacity as Artistic Director of San Francisco’s “American Conservatory Theater”, and now, presenting a play, “Luminscence Dating” (a co-production between the ACT and Magic Theatre, debuting at the Magic) much in the style of this intellectually peripatetic master. As educational, idea-oriented and brisk as a Stoppard play, “Luminescence” is also a “romantic thriller” set in the world of archaeologist/academics. The term “luminescence dating” refers to the process of analyzing the last time an unearthed object was heated-up. Perloff’s story concerns three scientists whose lives are tied-up in a quest for answers, as well as a mission more romantic in nature. Never has “dirt, digging and dating” been so fervently explored.

Featuring René Augesen, Gregory Wallace and Stephen Barker Turner, as the three archeologists, Perloff’s play is charming, well-crafted and smart. This is a director’s play, one in which every loose-end gets tied, all actions have logical conclusions, and plot revelations happen in a satisfying and logical order. There is even a mystical touch, in the presence of the mythic Aphrodite embodied by a nosy female janitor. Aphrodite's speeches don’t really need to make sense—for her (unlike the three scientists) things are all about poetry and love.

In the tiny Magic space, the ACT actors, Augesen and Wallac, have a chance to get smaller and funnier. Their friendly riffs as equally sexually frustrated colleagues create the lightness the work needs---elsewhere is a lot of jargon, a pushy plot and a good measure of academic monotony. Still, a female take on Stoppard offers romance where love in the master’s theatrical realm is usually more theoretical or sexual in nature. Here, Perloff offers love and emotion as an underlying tension that really does get mountains to move. She creates a lively entertainment full of ideas and funny repartee. Perloff is a lot more down-to-earrth, so-to-speak, than Stoppard ever was.