When A.R. Gurney’s comic attack on the Bush presidency was first staged last September at Boulder’s Nomad Theatre, director Billie McBride’s thrust was clearly to rile up the left into a state of pre-election activism. Audiences could walk out and actually do something with their newfound advocacy. A goal was in sight.
But bringing the play back a year into a second Bush term, one wonders if the effort might now only evoke a depressing sense of defeatism. The hope the left may have felt last September has been replaced by a calendar that still has 1,177 days to be crossed out like a prisoner awaiting parole.
And then there is the more literal question of thrust. “The Fourth Wall” was written to be presented on a recessed proscenium stage. In these theaters, the audience can see three literal walls, leaving one imaginary, invisible fourth wall up front, through which the audience can observe the story. Actors generally never break this fourth wall and maintain a presumed barrier between the two worlds.
The Avenue Theatre has a “thrust” stage, meaning the audience faces the action on three sides, not one. So there are, in effect, three “fourth walls.” Going in, one must wonder whether this comedy can work in this logistically mismatched performance space.
Surprisingly, the production overcomes both incongruities. The thrust stage turns out not to be much of a distraction (though audiences should arrive early and get a seat in the front section). McBride has Cindy Sheehan – the woman camped outside the president’s Texas ranch – to thank for the more significant issue.
In Gurney’s clever play, a housewife named Peggy has grown obsessed with one blank, undecorated living-room wall. While her friends and family believe they know what lies beyond – the dining room – Peggy wonders if instead this wall is a portal to a greater journey.
What if this is like the fourth wall in a theater, beyond which people might be watching them as if an audience attending a play? And what if they are seeking some kind of human connection, too? Peggy’s goal is to break through this wall, go to Washington and insist that “George W. Bush be the president he should be.” Peggy could just as easily get to Washington (or Crawford, Texas) through the front door, but this fourth wall is an internal metaphor she must topple first.
The comedy – and there are laughs in abundance – grows from all this talk about “performing in a play,” which soon has everyone behaving as if they are all characters in a suburban comedy of manners. Husband Roger (Paul A. Dunne) and pal Julie (deadpan show- stealer Rhonda Lee Brown) begin to speak with hilarious presentational affectation, and they call in an eccentric local drama professor (Scott McLean alternating with Geoff Kent) for advice.
Soon there are loads of inside theater jokes about exit lines and exposition. Whenever an actor is left alone onstage, he or she fills the awkward silence by breaking into a Cole Porter tune.
But put all together, “The Fourth Wall” is too much and too disjointed. It makes for the least effective form of political theater in that it tries to be all things to only half the people – the half that already are in the audience. Since the play doubles as a theater-insider comedy, there is little chance anyone will see this play who isn’t already a veteran of the choir.
Where “The Fourth Wall” succeeds more is as human theater held together by Edith Weiss, who is just a living, glowing ball of goodness. Her Peggy evokes Joan of Arc, the heroines of Shaw and Ibsen – and Sheehan. But though Sheehan’s rancorous methods are only further polarizing a splintering nation, she represents real blood and sacrifice. Gurney’s politics seem downright vapid when he has Peggy say, “I’d go to Washington and tell George Bush the Younger exactly what I used to tell my children: Share your toys, cooperate with others and learn to get along with people who are different.”
The reality of Sheehan losing her son and the memory of 1,875 dead U.S. soldiers should bring this play and its sentiment crashing down like a meteor. Because of Weiss, it never does.
Peggy’s innocent spiritual crisis should at the very least cause all on the right and left to reflect on whether America today stands for something we can live with and should die for. If only the play was written for both the right and left.
Theater critic John Moore can be reached at 303-820-1056 or jmoore@denverpost.com.
*** | “The Fourth Wall”
COMEDY|The Avenue Theater, 417 E. 17th Ave.|Written by A.R. Gurney|Directed by Billie McBride|Starring Edith Weiss, Rhonda Lee Brown, Paul A. Dunne and Scott McLean (alternating with Geoff Kent)|THROUGH OCT. 1|7:30 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays|1 hour, 30 minutes with no intermission|$15-$20|303-321-5925
3more
“DEAD WHITE MALES” Miners Alley Playhouse presents the world premiere of William Missouri Downs’ “Dead White Males,” a scathing indictment of the public-school system in a fictional Colorado middle school. Among its topics are the red-hot debate on teaching creationism as actual science. 7:30 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays; 6 p.m. Sundays through Oct. 2 at 1224 Washington Ave. in Golden. Tickets $16-$18 (303-935-3044).
“SLABTOWN” The Creede Repertory Theatre bows the world premiere of a dark Colorado mining comedy written by Denver Center Theatre Company actor Steven Cole Hughes and developed through the DCTC’s WorkingStages new-play program. Showtimes vary through Sept. 23 at 124 N. Main St. Tickets $15-$19 (719-658-2540, 866-658-2540, or creederep.org).
“THE DEAD GUY” The Curious Theatre debuts the world premiere of Eric Coble’s biting reality-TV satire in which a self-confessed loser wins $1 million – with a catch. He must die, on television, by a method to be chosen by the viewing public. 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays through Oct. 15 at the Acoma Center, 1080 Acoma St. Tickets $20-$26 ($13 Thursdays); call 303-623-0524 or curioustheatre.org.
-John Moore
