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A CurtainUp Review
Almost Home
By Elyse Sommer
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C'mon, son, use that good head of yours for
something that will pay off now and later. It's time to cash in— Pappas Cash in on what?— Johnny Your experience, Johnny, your experience...how you learned to get over on the street and in the Marines.— Pappas |
L-R: Joe Lisi,Johnny Orsini Karen Ziemba (Photo: Carol Rosegg)
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For all the things these men have in common, they have led very different lives. Mr. Anderson's post Vietnam years have been full of worthy accomplishments that include a successful editorship of Parade Publications and a number of non-fiction books, but he waited until retirement age to turn to playwriting. Consequently his Vietnam story lacks the immediacy of Sticks and Bones which was, so to speak, hot off the griddle. It was written when Rabe was still a graduate student and had written only one other play The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel, also prompted by Rabe's still fresh and highly charged involvement with the Vietnam conflict.
With so many American soldiers coming back from our latest awful and much disputed wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, there's certainly room for dramas to address the enduring fallout of past and current wars — whether new like Anderson's or revivals like Rabe's fierce, fiercely funny and original denunciation of a consumption-happy America's complacency about violence.
I wish I could say that Almost Home is as absorbingly unsettling and likely embed itself in my memory as Sticks and Bones did many years ago. Unfortunately, despite the returning Vietnam soldier situation, the war comes off more as a device to kick-start a dysfunctional family story that might have worked better as a Law & Order episode. Indeed, the prologue in a police precinct station in 1958 could be viewed as a set-up for a case in which the bad guy is a Nick Pappas (James McCaffrey), a law-unto-himself police captain. The "crime" begins in that prologue when Pappas makes a Faustian pact with Harry Barnett (Joe Lisi), an uneducated telephone line man whose World War II memories turned him into an alcoholic and compulsive gambler
There's no murder or good cops team to run interference in the battle for the future of Harry's son Johnny (Jonny Orsini), the returning Vietnam Marine. It turns out that growing up in a tough Bronx neighborhood and in a troubled home has made Pappas a Godfather-like presence in Johnny's life. Unlike the metaphorical blindness of the actually blinded returning veteran in Sticks and Bones, Johnny comes home with some physical and emotional scars, but not enough to prevent him from being ready and eager to achieve the good old American Dream via a college education. But Pappas, to whom Harry is more indebted than ever, has other plans. He wants Johnny to "cash in" on his heroism to join the police force and become his heir in administering his own well intentioned but nevertheless illegal brand of justice.
The "good cops" in Anderson's drama are his Mom (Karen Ziemba, once again cast in a role unworthy of her talent) and Luisa Jones (a nicely understated and dignified Brenda Pressley). Pessley's Miss Jones is the grade school teacher who encouraged Johnny to love books and education, as Pappas mentored him to become a boxer.
What this all adds up to is an old-fashioned kitchen sink drama. It's somewhat reminiscent of William Inge and Arthur Miller but without these playwrights' potent characterizations and memorably rich dialogue.
The actors do their best with rather stereotypical roles and a plot unrelieved by humor. Director Michael Parva, abetted by scenic designer Harry Feiner, has staged the play with a good feel for time and place and enough of a sense of drama to make Almost Home almost feel worth all the talent and effort brought to it.
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Almost Home by Walter Anderson Directed by Michael Parva Cast: Joe Lisi (Harry Barnett), James McCaffrey (Nick Pappas), Jonny Orsini (Johnny Barnett), Brenda Pressley (Luisa Jones), Karen Ziemba (Grace Barmett) Sets: Harry Feiner Costumes: Michael McDonald Lighting: Graham Kindred Sound: Quentin Chiappetta Hair and Wig design: Leah J. Loukas Stage Manager: Rose Riccardi Running Time: 80 minutes, no intermission Directors Company at Acorn Theatre on Theatre Row a410 West 42nd Street 212-239-6200 From 9/12/14; opening 9/18/14; closing 10/12/14 Wednesday to Saturday at 8pm, Saturday at 2pm and Sunday at 3pm. Reviewed by Elyse Sommer at 9/13/14 press preview |
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