The Plague, adapted from Albert Camus’ La Peste, will be live-streamed as filmed from Lantern Theater’s main stage through Nov. 7. An all-star cast featuring Anthony Lawton as Dr. Rieux, Peter DeLaurier as Jean Tarrou, Kirk Wendell Brown as Grand, J. Hernandez as Raymond Rambert, and Amanda Schoonover as Cottard certainly does not disappoint. I would go anywhere to see Anthony Lawton perform; the other four members of the cast give memorable performances as well. Following words hurled onto the stage in quick succession – “odd” “out of place” “out of the ordinary,” "ugly”- Dr. Rieux recounts the tale of two dead rats found in a hallway in the middle of April. By the end of April there is a death count of 8,000 people in the town and in the beginning of May one of the characters announces that no one is qualified to isolate anyone who is sick. There is an urge to avoid a panic. Camus wrote La Peste as a reminder of a cholera epidemic but also as a metaphor for rising fascism. Camus continues with death tolls, madness in the streets and looting. Eventually, when a serum is finally developed, there are some deniers who refuse to have the hope that is offered. Written in the 1940’s, it is all too uncomfortably a mirror for our present-day lives. Neil Bartlett’s adaptation, The Plague, is haunting. This stellar cast presents a performance that reverberates long after the final words are spoken.
