Powered by Jane Fonda's star turn and by magical production values, Moises Kaufman's 33 Variations manages to overcome script deficiencies in its L.A. premiere at the Ahmanson Theater.
First produced back in 2007 at Arena Stage, Washington, DC, then a year later in La Jolla, CA., the play deals with a less-than-compelling subject: why Ludwig van Beethoven spent nearly ten years of his life composing 33 variations of a trifling waltz written by his music publisher, Anton Diabelli (played flamboyantly by Don Amendolia). Kaufman's play centers on Dr. Katherine Brandt (Fonda), a musicologist so obsessed with the Diabelli mystery that she flies to Bonn and buries herself in the Beethoven Archive for a year. Because academic research is a less-than-sexy activity, Kaufman invents a comic German librarian, Dr. Gertrude Ladenburger (the captivating Susan Kellerman), to serve as a foil for Brandt. The playwright also tries to give urgency to Brandt's quest by emphasizing her mortality; suffering from Lou Gehrig's disease she must race against time as she tries to solve the mystery.
Fonda's crisp, commanding performance captures the determination and bravery of the woman, but Kaufman overreaches when he tries to correlate Brandt's problems with Beethoven's struggle against deafness and death. The two can never be equal: one was a midget, the other a god.
Kaufman covers over his questionable text with lashings of humor and slickness. Because his story jumps back and forth between 1819 and the present, he can bring in not just Diabelli but a frock-coated, bad-tempered Beethoven (Zach Grenier) and his fawning, fearful assistant Anton Schindler (the hilarious Grant James Varjas). Much attention is given to the play's subplot: the sweetly goofy love affair between Brandt's daughter (Samantha Mathis) and her male nurse (Greg Keller). It's played mostly for laughs; the same holds true for much of the play itself. In that way, Kaufman nimbly turns what might have been a dry, esoteric story into an enjoyable entertainment.
Derek McLane's dazzling set, David Lander's equally impressive lighting, Jeff Sugg's projection design and Diane Walsh's piano interludes help Kaufman greatly; without them (and Fonda's strong performance, of course), 33 Variations would have been pretty hard going indeed.
