A Dangerous Personality

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (Jodie Lynne McClintock), who founded the controversial social movement Theosophy, led an interesting life. Unfortunately, Sallie Bingham’s tiresome biodrama, A Dangerous Personality — directed by Martin Platt at the Julia Miles Theater — tries to compress so much data into the work that it plays like a nearly two-and-a-half-hour infomercial.

The play’s action begins in New York City in 1878. However, much of the first act is spent doling out exposition about Blavatsky’s life prior to that date, as well as laying out the foundations for Theosophy, which mixes elements of science and religion with what some might describe as magic.

Although the play incorporates the report made by researcher Richard Hodgson who claimed Blavatsky was a fraud, Bingham takes pains within her work to show that this is untrue. The playwright does not dabble in ambiguity, showing onstage psychic phenomena, such as Blavatsky receiving dictation by an invisible “Mahatma,” producing objects out of thin air, hemming towels locked up in a cabinet, and facilitating the delivery of “astral telegraphs” that fall out of the sky.

One of the worst missteps that Bingham takes is to set up Blavatsky as a Christ-like figure. The dialogue has the character wishing that “this cup would pass from me” at one point, and at another, crying out to her invisible master, asking why he has “forsaken” her. While the playwright no doubt intended to show Blavatsky as a misunderstood prophet, it links her up with the divine in a way that seems to be antithetical to the teachings of Theosophy, as well as distastefully heavy-handed.

To the play’s credit, it doesn’t shy away from portraying Blavatsky as an extremely unlikable woman, particularly when she makes demands of her followers to give up all contact with worldly matters, including destroying portraits of their children. These are the most interesting portions of the script, and McClintock has an imposing presence that gives these sequences a welcome edge. The actress is also good when matching wits with the Reverend Hiram Bingham (Steve Brady), but tends to overplay the more melodramatic elements of the story.

As Blavatsky’s colleague Colonel Henry Steel Olcott, Graeme Malcolm is given the most fully developed arc within the play, but doesn’t do enough to chart his character’s changes. The remaining supporting characters are all written without much dimension, and are played by Lisa Bostnar as Blavatsky’s somewhat skeptical follower Countess Constance Wachtmeister, Nancy Anderson as simple-minded maid Little Dorritt, and a hyperactive Sheffield Chastain as inventor Thomas Edison.

For those unfamiliar with Blavatsky and the principles of Theosophy, the play is educational. However, its wearisome dialogue and slack pacing is unlikely to win over any converts.