or maybe three. And once again director Laura Gordon has proven herself to be a consummate story teller and oh my goodness, did Marie Kohler hand her a compelling story, but not necessarily an easy path. So you might expect that a play about the biographer of Samuel Johnson and his subject, to lean somewhat toward the academic…but it is surprisingly natural and human throughout and expands the meaning of friendship, ambition, and self-awareness across two centuries. Two centuries? Yes, Kohler has drawn us into parallel universes in 1950s Chicago and Scotland and London of the 1760s and Scotland of the 1770s. And here might be the motto for this play (my paraphrase):
Samuel Johnson: Boswell? Boswell?!? Where are you? James Boswell: I am here. Johnson: Where’s here? Boswell: Well here! Johnson: No, I am here, you are there!
And that is exactly how I felt and maybe how you will feel too, I am here, and you are there (as I write this, heard that last bit in my head in a perfect Walter Cronkite voice). And here is why…we will experience action in two centuries and they aren’t always mutually exclusive. Many times our 1950s protagonist will be much like us experiencing and watching Johnson and Boswell in the 1700s and there are enough parallels in culture and societal norms to feel related.
Joan is an academic from 1950s Chicago, the University of Chicago to be exact. And she has been lured to Scotland to research a trove of papers related to Samuel Johnson. She is working with her professor, who stays in Chicago, on her dissertation and a book on Johnson. Madeline Calais-King plays Joan initially as a determined, studious, and ambitious scholar looking to make a name for herself through this research. Calais-King is delightful here as she is full of life and curiosity and eagerness to begin but is a bit put off by her host’s various offers of Scottish hospitality. So Calais-King throttles down a bit when the personal one on one relationships are in play. But once alone with the source materials, she comes alive again.
But not all is well with the materials, a trove of letters, drafts, and journals. Joan expected the writings of Johnson, instead these are the writings of Boswell…and that is a problem. Calais-King gives us a Joan who gets directly into the face of her Scottish host for deceiving her about the source of the documents and thinking she was mislead simply for the money. Then she has a problem letting go when she tries to discuss the issue with the professor, partly due to his preconceived notions, her own ambition, and technical difficulties around 1950s technology. Her host pushes back, being a distant relative of Boswell, she somehow spurs Joan into further consideration…and Joan through Calais-King starts to pace and quote from the journals and visualizes them (Boswell and Johnson) across the room just as they were in 1770. Eventually she starts to come around …she might be the last or maybe only the latest Boswell seduction. And Calais-King gives us a triumphant successful Joan in the end. By the way, listen for the term side kick…it seems to change targets during the play.
Brian Mani plays the great man, Samuel Johnson. He presents a Johnson full of ego and self-importance and as curmudgeonly as they come. Mani perfectly handles Johnson’s disclaiming in public, shout outs of word definitions or histories, with an assuredness that he is always right. But Mani can bring it down a notch once Johnson is outside the salons of the time and once he becomes friends with Boswell. Mani exhibits a friendship here that feels quite genuine. From blustering pomposity to gentile friend and traveling companion, Mani feels it all.
And James Boswell is played by Josh Krause. Krause starts out as an excitable boy in London and on to fan boy when he realizes that he is about to meet Johnson. Despite Johnson’s bias against Scots, the Scottish Boswell endears himself to Johnson and Krause easily moves his mood from fan boy to confidante to biographer. And during their joint tour of the Hebrides, Krause brings back that earlier excitement as he gets to share his love and knowledge and the beauty of his homeland.
Early in the play, just before Boswell meets Johnson, we get to meet several other intellectuals of London. Sarah Zapiain plays portrait painter Joshua Reynolds, who has his own bit of ego and pomposity on display. Zapiain then goes on to play any number of ladies who fancy Boswell including his wife Margaret. At the same time we meet Oliver Goldsmith, also a writer of poetry, novels, and sundry, played skillfully by David Cecsarini. Cecsarini plays a number of other characters, but maybe his best role is of David Hume. Here is able to get into a heated philosophical debate with Johnson about death and religion. I don’t think that there was a winner here…but it gave us another look at culture and society of the time. And Heidi Armbruster also appears in a number of roles (and in case you missed it, she is the playwright of Murder Girl currently at Milwaukee Chamber Theatre). Armbruster also appears as a noted personage in the role of David Garrick, the most famous actor of the time. Here Armbruster gets to emote and preen and prance about as Garrick. Quite a bit of fun!
Boswell runs through December 14, 2025 at Next Act Theatre at 255 S. Water St. Milwaukee. More information and tickets here.
BOSWELL is 1 hour and 35 minutes with no intermission.
Extra credit reading: The Playbill and the Audience Guide.
