BWW Reviews: THE ROAD FROM APPOMATTOX Leads To Gettysburg's Majestic Theatre

The meeting of Generals Grant and Lee at Appomattox Court House, ending the Civil War, has been well-documented and discussed for over a century. A second meeting the next day, however, in the nearby countryside, without other officers around to document the discussion, has often been missed, but it was one with its own far-reaching effects.

Where fact is insufficient, drama steps in. In 2009, Ford's Theatre in Washington first premiered THE ROAD FROM APPOMATTOX by playwright Richard Hellesen, with actor Steven Carpenter as Ulysses S. Grant, and John Dow, a ringer for the general, as Robert E. Lee. The two men have played these parts since then, and now Totem Pole Playhouse artistic director Ray Ficca is directing them in THE ROAD FROM APPOMATTOX at the Majestic Theatre in Gettysburg, in a joint Totem Pole/Majestic production.

The play is short, the set sparse, the subject complex - what do you say after the war is over? Is the war even over? When Lee and his army surrendered, there were other Southern armies still fighting in other areas. Grant hoped, in exchange for a guaranteed pass for Lee, that Lee would quell the other armies. Lee refused. Lee hoped for absolute pardons for all of his men - Grant did not refuse. Carpenter and Dow portray the discussions as they might have occurred, based on Grant's memoirs, Lee's letters, and the recollections of others who were nearby to hear of the conference immediately afterwards.

The story that emerges is one of respect - of Grant's respect for Lee, of the respect Lee's troops have for him, of Lee's stirrings of loss of respect for his own men. How to show face, how to save it? Hellesen's vision of that seems as likely as any, and as poetic as any might come to be. As Lee indicates, he and Grant are perhaps the last two officers and gentlemen who will recall war as it was fought before technology - and the Civil War innovated much military technology - made the rules of war as fought by gentlemen obsolete.

As he also notes, he and Grant are warriors, men who will know how to carry on with their lives after the war, for neither war nor peace is a disruption to those who live to carry on one and to maintain the other, but it is their men - men who upheaved lives as carpenters, merchants, mechanics, and the like - who will have to discover where they fit now that everything is over when they return to what is no longer there. Both generals' fear the reaction that the Southern men will have to returning to the desolation that was left behind, and both fear that it will create guerilla warfare against the government.

Though Carpenter seems just a trice young for Grant, he comes off well as the embodiment of military logic and reason, while Dow as Lee carries off the sense of being the heart of his operations in more ways than one; his is the embodiment of emotion, of sentiment, yet with a practical strategist's mind running underneath.

The show is followed by a question-and-answer by the actors, still in uniform but out of character. The men's knowledge of their respective characters' writings, however, is solid, and their knowledge of the physical territory of Appomattox coincides with their and the playwright's understanding of the psychological terrain.

If you're in the area, it's worth a look. That these two men have played these roles for four years now with each other is evident; the chemistry is there, more so than it would have been for the generals themselves. It's a play that should be seen by students, as an adjunct to Civil War history classes; it's a pity that there is no DVD of the show.

At the Majestic Theatre through July 21. Call 717-337-8200 or visit gettysburgmajestic.org for tickets.

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