In Theresa Rebeck‘s clever crime story Mauritius, five characters are locked in a power struggle, fighting over a rarity of potentially enormous value. But the price can’t be set for something as infrequently traded as a pair of 1847 postage stamps with a pressrun of only 500. What they’re worth is what one character will pay for them and what another will accept.
At least one person is likely to end up cheated. And simple theft is always possible when ownership is uncertain and lying comes easy. In Moxie Productions’ fast-paced staging, sharp performances carry the audience on a riveting ride.
Phillip is an antiques dealer with a rich knowledge of stamps and a jaded view of humanity. His young protégé, Dennis, has acquired some of the master’s expertise but perhaps not enough. When the young, punkish Jackie arrives at Phillip’s shop with a notebook of stamps, she hopes to be told how valuable they are and how easily they’ll make her rich.
Phillip assumes Jackie is unlikely to have anything of value and ignores her. But when Dennis takes a peek, he encounters an Inverted Jenny, the valuable air mail stamp with an upside-down plane. He lets Jackie know it’s of interest but that her version is in lousy condition. And then he spots something else, something so good he shuts the book and his mouth to avoid tipping Jackie off, coolly sending her away.
Dennis doesn’t seem to have a real job, but he has real connections to Sterling, a rich and emotionally volatile stamp collector with the demeanor of a gangster. Dennis expects to broker a sale when he says he’s just come across two “post office” stamps, the first British stamps produced outside Great Britain, issued in the days of Queen Victoria when Britain ruled the island of Mauritius. An engraver’s error makes them exceptionally valuable. Sterling craves them. He’s reduced to one furious and funny word about his need: “Motherfucker.”
As the double crosses mount, the show is exhilarating and just disorienting enough to dumbfound viewers.
But who really gets to sell them? Jackie claims her mother gave her the stamps, but her half sister, Mary, says they’ve always been hers. With their mother recently deceased, the two have some family ties to strengthen or tear apart. For Mary, the stamps are a sentimental treasure, given to her by her grandfather, never to be sold. For Jackie, who infers their value from online history, they’re money in the bank, provided she can keep her wits around some dubious characters whose idea of a business transaction is a swindle.
The play turns on what each character knows, guesses or hopes will be the value of the stamps. Rebeck’s plot is hot grease, sizzling. As the double crosses mount, the show is exhilarating and just disorienting enough to dumbfound viewers. The characters may not be lovable, but each carries a little mystery and a lot of need.
The play premiered in 2007 and was Rebeck’s Broadway debut. Structurally and thematically, Mauritius is a bit of an homage to David Mamet’s 1975 American Buffalo, set in a pawnshop where three men conjure a very poor plan to steal a valuable coin.
Mamet’s characters create a world by talking. Rebeck’s characters also sail on currents of words, in magnificent riffs that float on the misty border between what’s real and what’s forged, where one may con or be conned. The characters struggle to control a volatile situation, constantly veering from belief to doubt and back. In American Buffalo, the risks are all outside. In Mauritius, the danger is in the room.
It’s film noir written for much brighter lights. The humor is cool and clever, and director Monica Callan showcases the actors while establishing a fast but not fevered pace. Rebeck’s secret for building story tension is withholding details while hinting at past grievances, unrepaired family relationships and vague crimes. The actors have too little text to portray the past, but they make the present friction intense.
Lila Stratton, as Jackie, can lose herself in a scene, as she does in a mesmerizing showdown with Sterling and a madly oscillating tug-of-war with Dennis. Lindsay Repka gives Mary an arresting sincerity, so deep she may not be equipped for this world. Both performances are impressive, but both characters suffer from a past left so vague that we can’t pin down where their sorrows originate or why their relationship is strained.
Louis Bronson, as Dennis, moves smoothly and speaks with easy confidence while never overdoing it. This Dennis can glide through any situation and has a neat way of earning trust by suggesting he might be overmatched. Bronson makes Dennis so good at deception that we both admire his skill and fear for his prey.
Rob Donaldson, as Phillip, is a curmudgeon’s curmudgeon. For most of the play, he skillfully holds back his character’s objectives, and the audience isn’t going to be any better at deciphering him than the other characters are.
As Sterling, G. Richard Ames speaks with the menace of a mob boss but displays a stark vulnerability when it comes to stamps. Ames makes the most of Rebeck’s knotted character, and when it comes time to take control, he purrs with stunning certainty.
The set and lighting, by Peter Holm, are ambitiously detailed. The action swivels between Jackie and Mary’s house, dense with their dead mother’s belongings; and Phillip’s shop with its array of antiques, stamps and coins.
Events unfold with a mix of inevitability and surprise. To the very end, viewers will be hard-pressed to say who won, if winning in this particular world is possible at all. All five characters try to preserve a refusal to trust others, and nobody “learns” anything. Yet the play is far from bleak. Cynicism can only get you so far, Rebeck suggests; eventually, you have to take a risk on other people, even if all you’re making is a transaction.
The original print version of this article was headlined “Pros and Cons | Theater review: Mauritius, Moxie Productions”
This article appears in Nov 20-26, 2024.
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