It’s quite ballsy for an American company to stage a play about James Boswell in his home city of Edinburgh, but this proves to be a charming little production of Marie Kohler’s play about the great man.
Boswell, of course, is the biographer of Dr Johnson, writer of the first English dictionary and one of the greatest men of letters in the English Language. Our hero, however, is an American postgrad student in the 1950s named Joan Weinstein, who is researching Johnson, a figure she has long been fascinated with. Her studies lead her to the attic of a Scottish noblewoman, whereupon she finds a treasure trove of unpublished Boswell material which her host thinks is far more interesting. As she pours through it and we witness the blossoming of Johnson and Boswell’s unlikely friendship, so too does a curious friendship grow in parallel between the noblewoman and her guest.
For a play about 18th century literature, it’s surprisingly fun. The play finds a lot of humour in the sharp contrast between the two men, one a traditional, moral figure of the Enlightenment, the other a base, roguish womaniser. Their portrayals are rooted less in accurate historical depictions of these two figures than the folkloric idea of how we like two imagine these two men. Johnson is endlessly witty, erudite and boisterous, whilst Boswell fawns over Johnson, all the whilst pulling buxom barmaids left and right. The scenes of the two men discussing politics or joking about have the simple pleasure of a Jerome K Jerome novel. Though the concurrent 1950s story adds emotional weight to the play, it feels a little overshadowed by its corresponding 18th century scenes.
What really brings the characters to life is the actors, especially Johnson and Boswell themselves. I always imagine Dr Johnson as being difficult to play, who like Shakespeare’s Falstaff has a larger than life quality that is difficult to replicate. Nevertheless, the Johnson in this production is just as convincing in his jollier moments as he is in his more lugubrious and introspective scenes. A few dodgy accents aside, this is a solid production of a play that provides a fresh look at two titans of English literature and what they still have to teach us today.
