'Lady' Tramples Fragile Friendship

Lady by Craig Wright

David J. Miller, Scenic Design & Direction; Jeff Adelberg, Lighting Design; Fabian Aguilar, Costume Design; Walter Eduardo, Sound Design; Deirdre Benson, Stage Manager

CAST: Michael Steven Costello (Kenny), Craig Houk (Dyson), Brett Marks (Graham)

Performances through November 21 at Zeitgeist Stage Company,  Plaza Black Box Theatre at Boston Center for the Arts, 539 Tremont Street, Boston's South End                                

Box Office 617-933-8600 or www.BostonTheatreScene.com, www.ZeitgeistStage.com

There is an advantage to staging a play in a small space, especially when the plot is filled with tension and foreboding. With the audience seated only steps away from the actors, it is possible to transmit the heat of their anger and the rush of adrenaline as their emotions peak and erupt into violence. Like having ringside seats at a boxing match, once the punches start flying we hold our collective breaths awaiting the outcome. Will it be a TKO or a victory on points? In this case, it is a draw.

The New England premiere of Craig Wright's Lady at Zeitgeist Stage invites us on the annual hunting trip of three old friends in the woods of Illinois. For the politics of the story, it is important to know that it takes place in the autumn of 2006, and politics play a key role in the relationships among Dyson (Craig Houk), Kenny (Michael Steven Costello), and Graham (Brett Marks). The opening scene between Dyson and Kenny fills in their background and history and sets up the play's central conflict, albeit with a surfeit of exposition and shades of Waiting for Godot, who, in this trio, is Graham. Will he or won't he show up? During their conversation, Houk and Costello capably flesh out their characters as the angry liberal and the laid-back stoner, but they are less successful melding those aspects of their nature with the hunter mentality.

The title refers to Kenny's dog that has come along on the trip and is wandering around the woods amid random shots being fired by other hunters. He is nervously distracted by her absence, even more so than he is by thoughts of his wife's terminal illness. Dyson refuses to leave their campsite to help Kenny search for the dog for fear that they will both get lost as they did years ago in the boundary waters. Numerous references are made to that apparently unfortunate event, but its significance is never made clear. However, it seems to represent a time when the three men were inseparable and traveling the same path, as opposed to the present dissolving state of their friendship.

Dyson and Kenny helpEd Graham get elected to his first term in Congress, but Dyson has grown increasingly uncomfortable with his friend's positions as he tilts more conservative and supports President Bush and the wars he spawned. Most important, Dyson's only son has decided to quit college to join the Marines after listening to the congressman's remarks. Dyson spends much of the first scene repetitiously trying to recruit Kenny to be his confederate as he seethes about Graham's conversion and threatens to kill the latter if he won't dissuade Duncan from enlisting, but Kenny is generally too stoned on his wife's medical marihuana to care about anything other than Lady's whereabouts. When Graham finally arrives, the hunting commences and the sights are set on more than wildlife.

Dyson stands in for the playwright, asking the tough questions about America's role in the world post-911 and trying to force the answers from the dispassionate Graham. The liberal college professor waxes philosophically about the "cosmic window" that opened when the twin towers fell, dreamily imagining how the world might have changed if only Bush had waited to act. Sounding like the Administration's mouthpiece, Graham extols the country's quick response and opines that "we have to do whatever we can and will do until someone can stop us." Yikes! No wonder the hair-trigger Dyson turns on him. Although it is presented as being an act of desperation at the prospect of losing his son, it may really be for the greater good of the nation, that someone has to try to stop this Fascist masquerading as a democrat.

Unfortunately, Marks fails to imbue Graham with any redeeming traits that might garner some sympathy or support for him from the audience. He is resolute, both personally and politically, and it is impossible to imagine that he could ever pal around with the other two. When he asks Dyson what happened to change him, it sounds less than genuine, as if he knows that he's really the one who has changed. Of the three, only Graham seems to have broken out of the mold of their childhood clique, but Marks' portrayal exhibits a maturity that borders on fustiness. Implying that he has come along on the trip out of a sense of duty rather than desire, Fabian Aguilar dresses Graham in hunting clothes that are crisp and new, while Kenny's appear to have been slept in and Dyson's are well-worn and functional.

Director David J. Miller has designed a cozy, wooded set that, along with the effective lighting of Jeff Adelberg and sound by Walter Eduardo, creates a sense of confinement and an air of mounting tension. Punctuating Wright's script with off-stage gunshots, barking dogs, and repeated cell phone calls heightens the feeling that something bad could happen at any moment, but it becomes manipulative after awhile. The Zeitgeist promo has already prepared us to expect the worst, but bear in mind that not all violence is physical. Wright's characters play games, but the psyche is their theatre of war.

Photo:  Craig Houk (Richard Hall/Silverline Image)

 

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