March 12, 2008
American Century Looks At Vonnegut, The Playwright
Is the conflict between the archetypal, masculine hero and the worship of a more contemporary, sensitive man still one that resonates decades later?
Happy Birthday, Wanda June, a play by Kurt Vonnegut (yes, apparently Vonnegut wrote plays -- at least this one, anyway). It was written in 1970, and the anti-Vietnam undertones are rather prevalent in this story; comparisons to the current conflict might have proven an inspiration for American Century to pick up this often-forgotten work and put it to stage again. But the work's more central question is about the relevance of a once-revered man, Harold Ryan (William Aitken, appropriately coarse but with some intelligence behind his bluster).
Ryan has disappeared for several years on a hunting expedition, to the point where the world considers him dead. He returns to his wife Penelope (the name isn't a coincidence), who is caught between two suitors and her husband's memory. But this Penelope isn't quite so steadfast as Odysseus' -- she's about to marry Dr. Norbert Woodly, a rather effeminate peacenik, by the time Ryan shows back up.
Vonnegut's clearly out to show that Ryan has become a relic, with his outmoded concepts of servile women beckoning to his every call, and solving every problem with the swing of the fist. But the character seems so inconsequentially dated that it's hard to get behind the conflict as one that matters; in an age where romantic heroes are much more of the Luke Wilson/Colin Firth variety, it's pretty clear the sensitive man has triumphed, and even if one longs for a more traditional masculine figure, it's not going to be one who slaps his women around with relish.
Aitken and Kari Ginsburg as Penelope help keep American Century's production together (Ginsburg has a non-overt sort of sex appeal and gets some of the show's best one-liners: "You know she has no feet!" she days in defense of a man too doting on his mother), but the play does suffer from some performance problems, which contribute to the play's often sluggish pacing. Crane's Woodly is a goofy caricature; Adin Walker never really emotes as Ryan's son.
Vonnegut's play frequently subverts the fourth wall, often clumsily, to juxtapose the action going on with the family with what's happening in heaven, where the titular character hangs out with Nazis and watches Jesus play shuffleboard. As a playwriting trick, it doesn't make for a seamless structure, but those scenes are often the most entertaining; it's almost too bad Ryan didn't stay with his third drunken wife (Deborah Rinn Critzer) -- she's kind of the life of the party in this rather tepid work.
Happy Birthday, Wanda June runs through March 29 at the Gunston Arts Center in Arlington. Tickets are available online.
Image courtesy American Century Theater
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Vonnegut doesn't know shit about Vonnegut.
Vonnegut doesn't know shit about Vonnegut.
An odd critical comment about "today's heroes," I'd say. With Jack Bauer shooting and torturing his way past terrorists to high ratings, Jason Bourne killing hundreds per movie, Old Guard shoot-first-and-ask-questions-later heroes like Rambo, Indiana Jones and John ('Yippeekiyay, MF!") McLane all back in the saddle, George W. "Bring it on" Bush in the White House and Sen. John McCain, a Teddy Roosevelt-worshipper just like Hemingway, with a good chance of succeeding him, there is scant evidence that the Harold Ryans are in retreat, or that the Owen Wilsons/Alan Aldas have prevailed. If the reviewer really thinks the Sensitive Man has triumphed, she's watching the wrong TV shows. It just isn't so. Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing is open to debate. Vonnegut didn't really care for either type, as "Wanda June" makes clear.
Oh: the best line in the show is clearly "He speaks German like my ass chews gum." No contest.
Jack Marshall
Artistic Director
The American Century Theater
Jack,
I think some of the examples you raise are interesting, even though I'm still having trouble seeing this as a conflict that still has as much weight now as it likely did during the time the play was written. I think your point about Vonnegut's lack of enthusiasm for both archetypes is well-taken, and I think you point out some great examples of areas, particularly on the political front, where things are still a little muddy.
But I still think there has been a palpable evolution (for better or worse) in the idea/conception of the male hero over the past 40 years or so. I'm not trying to say action-style masculine characters have disappeared, but I do think they lost their dominance. And the sexual politics of the play seem from a different time as well - not to say mistreatment of women doesn't still exist, etc., but even within the brief time of Ryan's disappearance, things have drastically changed for him - add another 40 years, and I think there are more interesting examples of outdated sexual politics going on than focusing on the few remaining men left who think women should have dinner ready immediately at their request.
Anyway, I'll keep thinking about it, and I'm glad you gave me an alternate view to ponder.
GOOD GRIEF. Can you close that em tag, please?
Missy, I'd just suggest that the battle between the fighters and lovers, warriors and poets, John Waynes and Jimmy Stewarts, ebbs and flows but never really ends. Even in Owen Wilson's best recent movie, "The Wedding Crashers," his foil was a very un-evolved Vince Vaughn. Fewer men EXPECT dinner to be on the table, but I am pretty sure that a majority of men WANT it to be on the table. Harold is always lurking somewhere under the surface, and eternal vigilance is required.
Knowing nothing about Vonnegut's theatrical exploits, that photo tells me that he was an old dude who fantasized about getting it on with a much younger lady. Is that the general synopsis of this play?
I think “the conflict between the archetypal masculine hero and the worship of a more cotemporary sensitive male” is very much one that resonates today. Men are constantly bombarded by both types and urged to be one or the other.
I think the point that Vonnegut makes is that neither one exists on his own, in his entirety. You can no more be completely a Harold Ryan or completely a Dr. Woodley. The last scene demonstrates how both have the elements of each other by having Woodly come back to stand up to Ryan and Ryan’s inability to shoot Woodly at the end.
In addition, if the “sensitive male” has triumphed I suggest that you look closer at the men who live in this area. In the company I travel in there are plenty of whisky drinking, cigar smoking, red meat eating alpha males who would sooner walk in front of a bus then be called a “Luke Wilson” type.( And that’s just the actors and techs I know . It doesn’t count the construction workers and hunters I know from doing construction around here.) And that doesn’t mean that they are men who would use their fists to settle an argument or would abuse their wives and girlfriends but they do have more in common with Ryan then Woodley. You may not like men like that but they do exist and all walks of life including theater and the arts.
Hell, I have met more men like that in theater around here then I knew in the Corps.