An emotional journey, real or imaginary

December 01, 2009|Don Aucoin, Globe Staff

At the beginning of “Shipwrecked! An Entertainment - The Amazing Adventures of Louis de Rougemont (as Told by Himself),’’ the Victorian gentleman of that cumbersome title makes a promise to those of us in the audience.

“I am about to tell you a story,’’ Louis says. “A fantastic and amazing story! A story all the more remarkable because every word of it is true. That’s right. Every word. How do I know? Because I lived it, dear ones.’’

Familiar words, no? James Frey told us roughly the same thing. So did the parents of Balloon Boy. We’re conditioned nowadays to cock an eyebrow at stories that seem too good (or too bad) to be true, because we live in an age of self-promotion and embellishment and outright fabrication, of faked memoirs and reality TV wannabes who pose as invited guests to crash White House parties, then gleefully post photos of their stunt on Facebook.

But even a skeptical 21st-century audience may be inclined to go along for the ride with Louis de Rougemont, the eager-to-entertain protagonist of Donald Margulies’s “Shipwrecked!,’’ now receiving its Boston premiere at Lyric Stage under the direction of Scott LaFeber. When Louis’s story starts to fall apart, it seems less like a richly deserved comeuppance than a personal tragedy - and that, rather than in the enactment of his adventures, is when “Shipwrecked!’’ is at its most compelling.

Louis (the engaging and versatile Allyn Burrows) is both narrator and hero of the seafaring episodes he describes. By his own account, he was a sickly child whose devoted mother read him adventure stories, including “Robinson Crusoe,’’ until the dramatic day in 1869 when Louis, then 16, rose from his sickbed and left his London home, intent on adventure.

And for nearly 30 years, he breathlessly tells us, that is exactly what he found. Sailing on a pearl-diving expedition to the Coral Sea near Australia, the young Louis watches in horror as an octopus makes a snack out of one of his shipmates. Then Mother Nature begins to do her worst, hurling first a storm, then a whirlpool at the vessel. The resulting shipwreck leaves Louis floating on a piece of wreckage, the only survivor apart from his faithful dog Bruno (Daniel Berger-Jones, in one of several roles performed with exceptional vividness).