In a Class by Itself

THEATER REVIEW: The History Boys

by Mark Cofta

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Published: Oct 14, 2009

Mark Garvin

American audiences steeped in mainstream fictional high school — all social life and libido — might feel overwhelmed by Alan Bennett's superb The History Boys, which blends personal and academic concerns in an engrossing story of eight young men and their radically different teachers. We walk away heads swimming with ideas, still digesting the play's profound emotional impact.

Winner of the 2006 Best Play Tony, The History Boys will undoubtedly add more trophies to Arden Theatre Co.'s crowded shelf. Director Terry Nolen keeps the three-hour drama moving briskly, fueled by the young cast's shifts of David P. Gordon's spacious, handsome set and Daniel Kluger's '80s music choices.

Frank X, finally at the Arden (read David Anthony Fox's Q&A with X and Nolen at citypaper.net/arts), makes an ideal Hector, the flamboyant A.E. Houseman-quoting teacher who views education as an intellectual playground celebrating literature, music and film that Headmaster (David Howey) worries is "unquantifiable." The boys adore Hector, complaining only when he withholds attention — whether a head slap or a crotch grope.

When Irwin (Matthew Amendt) arrives to tutor the boys into "Oxbridge" acceptances, he introduces a pragmatic approach: scholarship as a game to win through outrageousness. Along with Maureen Torsney-Weir's brilliant turn as traditional, bitter Mrs. Lintott, the boys cope not only with impending exams, but with a fascinating clash of philosophies. Each wrestles with secret yearnings and conflicts, most movingly Posner's (Michael Doherty) crush on Dakin (Evan Jonigkeit) and Scripps' (Matt Leisy) religious convictions — plus their relationships with their teachers — in a complex plot featuring multiple narrators and disquieting detours into their futures. The History Boys captures a specific situation with insight and intrigue, while also challenging us to ponder larger questions.

Through Nov. 1, $29-$48, Arden Theatre Co., 40 N. Second St., 215-922-1122, ardentheatre.org.

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