Journey to the End of the Night

In a cozy basement, mellowed by lamps and trembling from passing trains, a mad old archivist tries to interest us in the neglected writer Louis-Ferdinand Céline. Worried that we have come to rehash old scandals—Céline scribbled vicious anti-Semitic screeds and faced charges in post–WWII France—our cackling host (Crawford) wants to chivy us into a more charitable frame of mind. He promises to leave the misanthropic, picaresque Journey to the End of the Night alone, preferring to argue for Céline’s idiotic ballet scenarios. But Crawford’s identity slips, winking at times into Journey’s antihero, Bardamu. Is our lecturer Bardamu grown old? Or Céline himself?

Director Joshua Carlebach and playwright Jason Lindner share creation credit for this grubby little gem with their collective, the Flying Machine. In the past, the clown-trained troupe has overdone the syrup—its predilection for sepia made its 2004 Frankenstein too sweet. But here they cut these tendencies with Céline’s acidic pen. Crawford never lets the goatish narrator seem too cuddly—just as we begin to believe Céline’s vitriol was an ironic exercise, he clotheslines us with something racist or profane. Was the author martyr or monster? The company straddles the question provocatively, gesturing one way with Crawford’s satyr eyebrows and the other with his hunted laughter. In a tricky, delicate performance, the actor susses out the real danger of the written word: Someday, someone might believe you.

—Helen Shaw