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| Robert Glaudini, Kathleen Cramer, Michael Hadge, (rear) Douglass Watson. |
THE HUNTER
[Drama/Friendship/Military/Period/Sex/War] A: Murray Mednick; D: Kent Paul; S:
Ralph Funicello; C: Theoni V. Aldredge; L: Spencer Mosse; M: Peter Link; P: New
York Shakespeare Festival; T: Public Theater Annex (OB); 5/23/72-7/16/72 (64)
A dull, heavily symbolistic, antiwar mood drama set in a
deserted graveyard during the Civil War. Two bedraggled soldiers, Lee and Harry
(Michael Hadge and Robert Glaudini); Marianne (Kathleen Cramer), a girl clad in
fringed buckskin (Kathleen Cramer); and a red-jacketed old hunter (Douglass Watson)—listed simply as Hunter—make up the list of characters.
The hunter is possibly a soldier, too, but this is vague. A
blank tombstone, a tree, and two cots are the scenic essentials. The talky
hunter comes across the soldiers on their cots and keeps them covered with his
rifle until they manage to ambush him and nail him to the tree. The girl
arrives, talks about her dream of a war many years in the future, and is raped
by one of the soldiers as the hunter writhes sensually and the other man pounds
a watermelon with his fist. After the hunter dies, he is kicked offstage. The
girl departs and the soldiers speak acrimoniously to one another. The girl
returns as they are on the point of mutual murder, but she is dressed as a
World War I nurse. A projection of thousands of crosses flashes on a screen.
John Simon interpreted the play to mean that possessive
rivalry, even among friends, can lead to conflict, particularly when a woman is
involved. Also, that man’s interminable war-making has created a world where
past, present, and future combat are essentially the same, thereby transforming
the planet into a “thinly-veiled graveyard,” and that hunting is he peacetime
equivalent of battle. But he argued that playwright Murray Mednick had tossed
his symbolism into an overcooked stew in which the characters emerge without
the flavor of life, the dialogue lacks seasoning, and the drama is stale.
Edith Oliver sided with Simon, finding “the writing so
opaque and of such poor quality that one never feels the mystery is worth
cracking.” Critics like Clive Barnes and Martin Gottfried were confused but
appreciated Mednick’s effort nonetheless.