219.
ROW AFTER ROW (with a P.S. on TYSON VS. ALI)
In
Jessica Dickey’s new play, ROW AFTER ROW, now playing under the aegis of the
Women’s Project Theater at City Center Stage II, much is made about the
practice of “farbing.” Cal (PJ Sosko), a zealous Civil War re-enactor in
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, explains that the term, whose etymology is vague
(unless it comes from “Far better for me to tell you”), is zinged at those re-enactors
who introduce inauthentic elements into their uniforms, weapons, or
accoutrements. Cal is vociferously dedicated to authenticity, down to the
thread count in the clothes participants wear, yet, late in the play, after a
day of re-enacting the battle of Gettysburg, he sits on the floor of a local
tavern with the squeaky clean soles and heels of his boots staring the audience
in the face. “Farbing!” one is tempted to shout, but then again, the word could
be hurled at some of the lumpy play itself.
Rosie Benton, Erik Lochtefeld, PJ Sosko. Photo: Carol Rosegg.
Ms. Dickey, a resident of
Gettysburg, has tackled the interesting problem of creating characters who
devote themselves annually to the recreation of historical battles, in this
case the horrific combat at the Battle of Gettysburg. She posits a pair of long
time buddies, Cal, a macho man who recently endured a painful breakup, and Tom (Erik
Lochtefeld), a local rabbi’s son and high school history teacher with a wife a
child, who engage in this yearly exercise because of their Civil War obsession.
Tom, who suffers from indecision in his daily life (he can’t decide whether to
sign a petition to go on strike or not), plays a Union deserter, while the more
direct Cal takes pride in his role as a Confederate general. When the men,
friends since childhood, encounter a third re-enactor, Leah (Rosie Benton), a
former dancer making her first stab at re-enactment, at the tavern where they
traditionally have their post-battle celebration, they engage with her in
dialogue ranging from contentious to friendly to flirtatious. After all, the
presence of a woman in Civil War military uniform suggests a form of farbing,
albeit one that does have some historical support. Naturally, this allows the
feisty Leah, nobody’s fool, to introduce
feminist issues into the dialogue, and the play sometimes takes on the tone of
a polemic. Some dramatic sparks fly, but
most are about as harmless as those from a 4th of July sparkler, and the play
too often fizzles instead of sizzles.
Intermittently entertaining and
informative, Daniella Topol's lively staging of ROW AFTER ROW establishes a potentially interesting world, but,
despite strong efforts by the actors, the characters are overwrought,
especially the men, and there is very little dramatic thrust to the plot. The
potentially romantic outcome of the men’s interaction with this woman in the
world of male empowerment is predictable and not especially engaging. Mr. Sosko offers a decent portrayal of Cal but I never quite believed his combination of machismo and vulnerability. Mr. Lochtefeld occasionally overdoes Tom’s anguish, and,
acting-wise, only Ms. Benton’s Leah manages to skirt the farbing problem.
Clint Ramos’s set suggests a quaint tavern
in the 19th-century mode with merely a piece of brick wall, wooden flooring,
and a table with three chairs. Lining the upstage wall is about half a cord of
firewood, and split logs and shavings are scattered around the downstage
perimeter in a separate space suggesting the outdoor environment of the
battleground. This area is often used for Ms. Dickey’s attempt to elevate the
romantic comedy aspects of her play onto a plane of more serious historical
issues by having the action suddenly shift a number of times from the
contemporary bantering and bickering among the characters into scenes that echo
actual historical situations. Often, the everyday colloquial dialogue shifts,
along with the lights (effectively designed by Tyler Micoleau), into a more
poetic vein, and lyrical monologues are presented. Too little of this playwriting
palaver seems organic, and too much of it like dramaturgic farbing.
After a week in a sickbed, I was
anxious to get back to the theatre for something to lift my heart and spirit.
ROW AFTER ROW didn’t do the job but there’s play after play in the week ahead.
P.S. I came down with some kind of
bug last week after seeing TYSON VS. ALI staged by Reid Farrington, from a
script by Frank Boudreaux, at 3-Legged Dog at 80 Mercer Street in the Financial
District, which I was too weak to review. This hour-long, imaginative piece of
theatre is set in a boxing ring (designed by Simon Harding), with the audience
on two sides; it uses a tremendous amount of visual technology (the raison d’être
of 3LD), and employs four supremely athletic actors playing Muhammad Ali and
Mike Tyson (and other fighters) to examine who, of these two former champions,
might have been the victor had they ever fought. Structured like a boxing match,
with spoken interpolations by the principals between the rounds, it has some
very good boxing sequences, and intriguing boxing choreography by Laura K.
Nichol; it’s very ambitious and experimental, done with terrific
professionalism, but, for all its theatrical inventiveness, is dramatically
inert.
