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Berkeley Rep’s new Roda Theater is a winner: Handsome and comfortable auditorium, good sight lines, a lobby with polished concrete floors and an elegant bar. There is a book shop. Even the bathrooms are pleasant.  

The current production adds other pleasures. The clever set is a dream version of Leonardo da Vinci’s study, with what looks like a giant wooden filing cabinet that frames the stage. The large drawers open up to provide unexpected exits and entrances for the actors and various other surprises, including a staircase. Enhanced by excellent lighting, the visual effect is intriguing. The eight actors speak well and use the set resourcefully.  

The only thing missing is a play.  

Except for an embarrassing bit of invented dialogue, spoken entirely in Berlitz Italian, “The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci” is made up entirely of brief excerpts from the actual notebooks. These, the program tells us with admirable candor, are more than 5,000 pages in length and “fragmentary.” Mary Zimmerman’s adaptation is fragmentary too. She gives us musings, often with no connection at all, about several of the artist’s many interests: painting, optics, mechanics, sculpture, birds, flying. For the sake of variety (or something), she also includes a few diary entries about Leonardo’s troubles with a boy he hired as servant and model.  

One or another of the actors declaims each fragment with great solemnity—this is Leonardo speaking, the portentous tone reminds us, so listen up. At the same time, other cast members perform a collection of workshop movement exercises: dance steps, gymnastics, bits of mime. Most last only a minute or two, but some develop into a sort of mimed skit, such as the oddly macabre business performed while we hear about Leonardo’s experiments with dissection.  

There is no attempt to create a drama, an action of any sustained coherence, or even to suggest anything much about the artist’s character. As a result, the whole thing is a terrible bore. Who would have thought that Leonardo’s private thoughts could be so dull? 

The production is full of technical invention, and the actors carry off the various bits with energy and flair. One cannot help wondering why so much effort and talent have been thrown away on something so resolutely undramatic. Perhaps the idea is to prove that anything at all can make good theater. 

If so, I’m not convinced.  

“The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci” runs through Oct. 19 at the Rhoda Theater, 2025 Addison St. 

www.berkeleyrep.org.