Oliver Cotton’s The Score is making its American debut and its only appearance at DC’s Shakespeare Theatre Company. The play is a meditation on the survival of chaotic despotism.
In the play’s first act, the audience is immersed in a breathless adoration of European culture and wealth; think Bridgeton or Merchant and Ivory movies. The people in the court of Frederick the Great of Prussia constantly, but stylishly, police their language and behavior so as not to offend their volatile leader. The monarch summons a reluctant J.S. Bach, whose home city of Leipzig is being occupied and pillaged by Frederick’s troops, to the Prussian court.
As expected from the man who directed the original version of Cats, the play is visually multi-layered, well-costumed, and well-staged. Unfortunately, it is also tedious.
The Back Story
Two-thirds of the way through the first act, in the wake of experiencing Frederick’s erratic personal cruelty, Bach asks the Black servant Emilia to share her experience in the court. Emilia narrates a portrait of the Prussian state’s cruelty and its ruler’s personal moral emptiness.
When his father refused to let him pursue his passions for music and philosophy, according to Emilia, Frederick ran away with his male “friend.” Once caught, his “friend” was convicted of treason and beheaded under Frederick’s own eyes. His father then sent Frederick off for military training.
Yet music continues to animate Frederick, the despot. He summons Bach largely to plumb the depths of the composer’s genius.
The Contest
Upon arrival in Potsdam, Frederick challenges Bach to a contest. Improvise a three-part fugue based on a complicated musical theme, he orders him. The fiendish melody had come to Frederick in a dream. He then ordered it refined by his flock of court composers.
Bach’s son makes a massive wager on his father’s success. The outcome is, of course, preordained. Bach creates the piece, but then refuses the monarch’s further request for him to extend it to six parts. In the wake of the triumph, Bach heads home in the company of Emilia, who has been fired from the royal household.
Perplexed by the meaning of his dream’s melody, Frederick visits Bach’s home, pursuing answers. Again, Bach is forced to navigate between offending the monarch and answering another human’s heartfelt query. This is the core of the drama. The conversation changes both men. It inspires Bach to write his Musical Offering, a collection of works based on Frederick’s musical theme, including a six-part fugue. Their interplay is riveting.
Brian Cox, a Thespian samurai, is supported by an equally strong cast. Stephen Hagan in the role of Frederick echoes Hamilton’s King George III with a hit of lethality. Juliet Garricks, as the long-suffering survivor Emilia, is luminous .
In the era of Donald J. Trump, The Score offers lessons in accommodation and transformation.
Gregory Ford is the Anacostia Coordinating Council Arts & Culture Critic. He is also an actor and singer. He is a member of Verbal Gymnastics Playback Theater troupe. He has written for Capital Community News and continues to write for dctheaterarts.org, focusing on College and University Theater Productions. He is a clinical psychodrama practitioner. Mr. Ford lives in Northeast Boundary in Ward 7.
