The Old Globe commissioned Fiasco Theater to create a new play based on Herman Melville’s 1853 short story "Bartleby, the Scrivener." The result is a workplace comedy that proves some things never change.
Any company that chooses to call itself Fiasco Theater immediately has my attention.
"We chose the name Fiasco because, in addition to being a fun word, one of its etymologies, whether it's true or not, is that it comes from the Commedia dell'arte troupes," explained Noah Brody. "And that a 'fiasco' in Italian is a bottle of wine. And so the legend has it that if in the Commedia troupes, when you try something out and if it works, great. If it didn't work out, if it flopped in front of the audience, they'd say, 'fare fiasco,' you're making the bottle. In other words, you're buying at the bar tonight. So it has this theatrical background, and we thought, it's great. You have to be willing to risk making a fiasco for the hope of making something great."
Taking risks is not something you often find even in the arts, but it has served Fiasco Theater well. "Bartleby" is their third project for The Globe. Previously, the company staged "Into the Woods" and "The Imaginary Invalid." Now Brody and cowriter Paul L. Coffey take on Melville’s darkly comic classic.
"I think we were just interested in this idea that a character in mid-19th century is going through some of the things that we are going through today — and people have been going through for quite some time," Coffey said. "Whether that's office life and the frustrations that come along with it, or a room full of people who are used to working in a certain way and adhering to the status quo. Then one day someone says, 'No, I'm not going to do that. I'm going to do something different.'"
Melville’s story begins with a simple act of passive resistance. When asked to perform a simple task, Bartleby responds, "I’d prefer not to."
"That form of passive resistance turns out to be incredibly inflammatory to everyone around him," Brody said.
We are at a moment in time when different forms of resistance are often in the news, whether they're the No Kings marches, the Portland Frog Brigade or Trillionaires for Trump. But Bartleby's resistance doesn't fit into any conventional category.
"My personal read on Bartleby is that the thing he's not doing is actively resisting against a system," Brody said. "I do think he is a model of passive resistance in that he's not doing anything against anyone. He's choosing, in a sense, his righteous path. It's interesting the degree to which that creates tension among the other people."
For Coffey, "I think part of the appeal of the short story is that it is a mystery, and we don't really know exactly what is going on with Bartleby. To say it's just this one thing or it's just this other thing limits the possibilities and the wonderful life of the story and the language."
"I also think that one of the miracles that Melville pulls off in this story is that no one is clearly right or clearly wrong," Brody said. "In this case, you could read the situation either way, or both ways simultaneously, which is to say there's the person resisting. But then on the other side is the person saying, 'But aren't there a set of norms that we've all agreed to hold to so that we can all work together and get things done?' You can question whether those norms and those systems are equitable or if they should be adhered to. But it's hard to question that we do make a pact as a society to work together. And one guy just deciding to say, 'I'm just not going to observe any of your rules,' does throw society into chaos. And so in a way, Melville is able to let us just interrogate the whole question without giving us an easy default to — here's the person who's right and here's the person that's wrong."
You can side with Bartleby or his employer. It’s like a Rorschach test that reveals more about the viewer than the story, because Bartleby does not give you any information. He’s an enigma, a blank canvas that you can project whatever you want onto.
Brody and Coffey considered updating the story but quickly decided against it.
"I think great pieces of art like Shakespeare and like Melville have universal themes, names, ideas, human problems and concerns that don't require updating," Brody said. "But what they do possess — often for us — that attracts us is a richness, a punchiness, a muscularity of language, broad dynamics of experience in a way that excites us and is thrilling to try to ride the wave of as actors and as adapters."
The playwrights saw Bartleby as being right at home in the movie "Office Space" or the TV show "The Office."
"Early on, it certainly struck me, this is an office-place comedy," Brody said. "This is absolutely an office-place comedy with tropes that we've come to understand. I guess it's quite an early version, given the fact that it's also happening at the time when America's becoming much more mercantile and much more work factory-oriented in 1850. But the office is the office, no matter where you go or what country you're in."
The workplace setting may feel familiar, but Melville’s story and Fiasco Theater’s play find originality in a passive character whose decision to "prefer not to" has stirred vigorous debate and turmoil for centuries.
