Philosophy Out of Sorts


David Begelman
begelman33@gmail.com


In the realm of what we may casually reference as “voluntary action” it strikes me as wrongheaded to contrast “free decision-making” with compulsive, addictive, hypnotically induced, kleptomaniacal, unconsciously produced patterns or brainwashing. Philosophers, largely without exception, describe such behavioral patterns as those diminishing what in their view is the ordinary elasticity of human action. Thus, they insist, compulsive persons lack the “freedom” to make quite commonplace “choices” available to others. Is it high time to correct the record about the alleged restrictions such clinical patterns have on free decision-making? This does not speak to faulty reasoning in the higher reaches of the determinism/free will debate. It only amounts to choosing unfortunate examples with which to score philosophical points.


Take compulsions. What philosopher has not referred to what is termed “Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder” (coded 300.03 in DSM-IV) as seriously limiting “the freedom to act”?  The difficulty here is that compulsions (whatever the range of severity in their clinical presentations) cannot be contrasted with free acts should we construe these maladaptive patterns as “being beyond control” or “lacking a sense of alternative possibilities for choice.” Here it might be useful to distinguish “lacking a sense of alternative possibilities” as a belief on the part of the compulsive person from an actual feature of his or her behavioral repertoire or capacity. Thus, the conviction a patient so diagnosed has no choice—in the sense that he or she is incapable of exercising it—has little bearing on whether or not this is true.


The possibility of a freely undertaken act in the ordinary, not contra-causal, sense is the assumptive underbelly of chosen therapeutic programs, and not only of compulsions, but addictive patterns as well. OCD patients make remarkable progress in reducing their maladaptive patterns by undertaking voluntary decisions to resist impulses philosophers proclaim have them virtually straightjacketed in patterns over which they have no control! This remedial approach, dubbed “exposure and response prevention” strategies (supplemented in some, not all, cases by antidepressants or benzodiazepines to lower anxiety levels) is currently the effective treatment of choice. It replaces an ineffectual nostrum for the condition, psychoanalysis, of which we shall have more to say.


OCD patients are capable of stepping up to the plate in effecting what many philosophers believe is beyond the range of their capability, as though those academics assumed the maladaptive pattern in question is “coerced” in the manner of a falling body obeying the law of gravity. As an example, the compulsive checker or hand washer is encouraged to resist engaging in the very patterns in question. This is accomplished by scheduled sessions in which progress takes place in stages, each of which is marked by freely undertaken decisions to refrain from emitting the target behavior (Abramowitz, 1996, 1998; Emmelkamp et. al. 1994; Foa  & Kozak, 2004). In a very real sense, the compulsive person is troubled by a pattern that persists because he or she has never cottoned on to the advantage of voluntarily resisting urges. Because of this, the latter are perpetuated indefinitely. In instances of severely deteriorated OCD patterns, as in the case of Howard Hughes, his disadvantage was, inter alia, the dictatorial control he exercised over allowing alternative therapeutic approaches to his problem.


    
There are other clinical conditions which are said to restrict freedom. Take epilepsy. How, it may be asked, can we hold an individual responsible for a pattern which is, after all, one in which behavior is the consequence of electrical circuitry in the brain suddenly going haywire? Ironically enough, even here freedom and responsibility cannot be entirely preempted.



What about cases in which we hold persons responsible for their seizures when they are irresponsible in adhering to a prescribed regimen of anticonvulsive medication? In such cases, responsibility for one’s seizures seems justified, and grounded in the idea of voluntary action. The same applies when seizure activity itself is either created or exacerbated by alcohol abuse. Of course, such examples do not shed light on the larger philosophical debate; but is the hunch about compulsive and epileptic persons that, “They cannot help themselves” or “They are not free to act in any way other than the one they do” a bit hasty for the reasons outlined?



Another problem in fixing the boundaries of “freedom” in compulsive patterns is the difficulty in determining what areas of human behavior should be demarcated. For example, if a criterion of a compulsive pattern is its repetitive and strong motivational character, why are only maladaptive or treatable conditions accorded the mantle of lessened freedom? Is a tendency to overeat driven by a “coerced” pattern? What about a tendency to eat regularly simpliciter? If the anorexic patient is not “free” due to a compulsion not to eat, why are the rest of us accorded greater freedom to act, when we are only her counterparts on the other side of an appetitive pattern, i.e., a population of individuals who cannot stop eating? Perhaps the difference here is not one relating to different strains of “freedom,” but classifications of adaptive v. maladaptive patterns.



Addictions are another example of patterns sometimes relied on by philosophers to illustrate lessened “freedom of choice.” But commentary here is heavily influenced by pieties that are the stock and trade of rehabilitation programs like Alcoholics Anonymous (Pattison, Sobell & Sobell, 1977). These treatment programs have been more successful at generating sound bites than they are in relation to therapeutic successes. They also broadcast the view that persons with serious drinking problems have, mirabile dictu, “diseases” (Peele, 1989) that cannot be cured unless they face up to their “permanent condition,” rely on something called a “higher power,” and commit themselves to 12-step treatment programs involving supportive group discussions, sponsors and frequent meetings.



The research on the subject hands in a quite different verdict. There is a high recovery rate among addicted people, whether drinkers or druggies. Heroin addicts break their habit by themselves on the average after about a decade of using. Half of serious drinkers terminate their pattern, although only 10% of this population have committed to a treatment program of any kind. One study revealed that 80% of alcoholics who become abstinent for a year or more are cases of spontaneous remission: they do it on their own, some after unsuccessful treatment. Over half reported that a variety of factors led to the termination of their addictions: blackouts, health problems, family, financial and vocational problems, and the like (Harvard Mental Health Letter, 1995, p. 3). So much for bromides about “Everyone needs a support group” and “Nobody can do it alone.” The facts indicate otherwise, yet philosophers often reference addictive patterns as leaving little room for “freedom.” Again, this poses no serious challenge to incompatibilism; it’s just a batch of sorry examples with which to illustrate something about reduced freedom.



And what philosopher would pass up the chance to illustrate lessened freedom as instanced by the so-called hypnotic trance?  (In many of their discussions, they conceive of the trance state induced by the procedure supposedly saddling the hypnotized subject with acts over which he or she has no control.) But until experimental psychologists get a conclusive fix on just what hypnosis is—whether it amounts to something involving a “trance state,” as opposed to an elaborate form of role-playing—it may be premature to use it as another example of abridged “freedom.” A satisfactory theory of processes involved in so-called hypnotic “trances” has been long in coming, and nowadays there are too many contrasting formulations about its nature to justify citing it as a useful example of behavioral restriction in the determinism/free will debate.



In recent years, and with some exceptions, research on hypnosis is largely divided among “state theorists” (Hilgard, 1965, 1973, 1991) and “non-state theorists” (Barber, 1964, 1969a, 1969b; Sarbin, 1950, 1992; Spanos, 1982) who have debated such issues as to whether hypnosis actually consists in an altered state of consciousness like dissociation, or whether the suggestibility assumed to be one of its defining features differs appreciably from the same function in non-hypnotized controls.



When it comes to kleptomania and brainwashing other subtexts bearing on a presumed loss of freedom enter the picture. In kleptomania, one might distinguish between the psychiatric definition of the disorder (coded as 312.32 in the DSM-IV, the diagnostic manual of the American Psychiatric Association) and the expanded meaning of the term often employed in ordinary parlance. The latter is extended to a multitude of cases in which there is a pattern of stealing or shoplifting. However, on the technical definition of the term the disorder is a rare, uncommonly observed type of what clinicians call “Impulse Disorder.” On this definition of kleptomania, there is a build-up of tension before an act, and pleasure or gratification at the time of committing the theft. Here, objects stolen are not needed for personal or monetary value, and the act is a solitary one, without assistance from confederates. (Confederates or shills in shoplifting are a frequently documented pattern in cases mistakenly diagnosed as kleptomania.) With respect to the implications for “freedom” or “the inability to resist,” this alleged form of compulsion involves “overpowering impulses” that seem to disappear in the presence of authorities like police officers. So much for the hapless kleptomaniac saddled with irresistible impulses. Evidently the latter can be made to evaporate in the vicinity of uniformed officials. It’s irresistible impulses with riders!



Kleptomania is intriguing from yet another standpoint. The deployment of the diagnostic label is rich in exculpatory possibilities, especially for the socially prominent. For example, when celebrity actresses (13 shall go unmentioned) are caught stealing merchandise from shops, a diagnosis of “kleptomania” is at hand to characterize their venture, although such offenders may not meet strict criteria for the diagnosis. On the other hand, when a ghetto youth is apprehended filching trinkets from five-and-dime stores, the wisdom is that he or she is only a “shoplifter” or has an “antisocial pattern.” Evidently, the highly placed person is subject to urges that are overwhelming—not so the anonymous adolescent. The implication is clear. The well-placed are conveniently judged as persons with upstanding characters, were it not for being  unfortunately assailed by uncontrollable impulses. Unlike ghetto youngsters, they are supposedly not “free” to resist the urges they are subject to—arguably another example of the modern tendency to invent “illnesses” with alibi or exculpation as covert subtext (Szasz, 1961; Halleck, 1971). The legacy is a dependable one when it comes to the addictions.




So-called “brainwashing” is likewise another pattern rich in subtext. When one considers the most systematic attempts to brainwash individuals originally hostile or indifferent to the belief system forced upon them, the result must be counted a resounding failure. This was the verdict in the programs of the captors of American servicemen during the Korean War whose efforts to “brainwash” were largely futile (Schein, 1958). Yet the campaigns in question were pervasive: they sought to control every aspect of the thinking and living conditions of the servicemen.



Allegations of “brainwashing” most of the time subserve a moral/political aim. They represent covert judgments about what belief-systems or institutions should be negatively evaluated. As we might expect, the allegations are frequently coupled with terms like “cult,” the liberal use of which is close on the heels of inveighing against suspect programs of mind control. On closer consideration, the disparagement seems to verge on nothing less than indictments of religions or belief systems we find personally disagreeable.



When we attempt to distinguish what are commonly designated as “cults” from the belief systems of favored institutions, the effort is unavailing. One descriptor of “cults” might be insularity. But insularity is a distinguishing feature of orders within the major religions: cloisters, nunneries, yeshivas, mosques, etc. And running through a slew of other defining characteristics like torture, mind-control, social isolation or sexual improprieties, the baleful judgment about differences between them and accepted systems meets the same fate. We find similar traditions of torture within our own military and endorsed by both the Bush and Obama administrations, insularity within Amish and Hasidic communities, sequestered nunneries or monastic orders and sexual impropriety among the ranks of pedophiles in a major religion that has insulated them from prosecution. Yet no one characterizes Catholicism, Judaism, or the American presidency or military as “cults”—unless, of course, these curry disfavor on the other side of an ideological divide.



The term “cult” is consequently one with more of a polemical than descriptive tincture. In a recent tome on “strange and unusual” belief systems flourishing across the commonwealth, Stollznow (2013) targets groups ranging from fundamentalist Mormons to Quakers without, it should be noted, comparable reviews of darker strains within major religions. In this regard, why are Scientologists, Branch Davidians, or schismatic Mormon groups “brainwashed,” but not those in the thrall of the often fiery priests, rabbis, imams, or pastors dotting the broader American landscape? Of course, for talking heads in Ted Patrick’s now defunct Cult Awareness Network, it’s only the former groups that have the earmarks! What about toddlers in evangelical Sunday schools who announce their repudiation of Darwin’s evolutionary theory (without even understanding at a tender age what it is)? Why is the indoctrination called “education” by their fundamentalist tutors, not “brainwashing?”



Do cults entice impressionable and unsuspecting youngsters into their toxic folds? Or do many of these regretful prodigals turn out to be cases of sour grapes when fed up with their charismatic gurus? Do they need to be “deprogrammed” as though they were miswired computers? Or are their decisions to get out from under strategically morphed into a face-saving stance as harrowing escapes from wicked influence? There is no rigorous research evidence showing that belief stabilization or modification in so-called “cults” is mediated by psychological processes any different from those in mainstream religious or political groups.



Then we come to the unconscious, a hotbed of challenges to “freedom” by philosophers, on any accounting. However, commentary on the subject is a mixed picture, covering rubrics we might characterize as (1) contemporary neuroscience (2) a broader tradition of experimental research about the cognitive unconscious initiated in the nineteenth century, and (3) Freud’s psychoanalytic theory. Older memorable commentary about the last of these categories was authored by Hospers (1961) and Lazerowitz (1961). Maybe it’s a bit unfair to lay siege to the philosophy-cum-Freud fortress a half century after the fact, but the intellectual tradition represented by these two spokespersons is, unfortunately, still alive and well. It is brokered by a wider group of diehards parochially loath to consider that the snows of yesteryear have long since melted away.

(To be continued)

Domestic Dreams: Boleros for the Disenchanted at Yale Repertory Theatre

David Begelman

Jose Rivera has the distinction of being the first Puerto Rican author to be nominated for an Academy Award screenplay. The election was for The Motorcycle Diaries, a beautifully crafted 2004 film about the journey of Che Guevara and a friend, Alberto Granado, across South America in their youth. He has also authored Marisol and Cloud Tectonics, plays that made their debut on the island of his birth he left at the age of four.

 

According to Mr. Rivera, Puerto Rico has been called “The Enchanted Island,” although the playwright is the first to point out that the idea of enchantment has two meanings. It can signify a devotional aspect of love and excitement, or, conversely, a spell embracing false hopes and dreams. The latter experience is often the lot of islanders who come to America to realize the promise of another kind of future that quickly fades in the wake of disappointment.

 

Gary Perez as Eusebio and Adriana Sevan as Flora in Act II of Yale Repertory Theatre’s world premiere of Boleros for the Disenchanted by José Rivera, directed by Henry Godinez. Photo © Joan Marcus, 2008

A similar sentiment of disillusionment is also expressed in Anita’s ode to America in West Side Story: “Life can be bright in America/If you can fight in America/Life is all right in America/If you’re all white in America.” The pattern of bouncing back and forth between the island and the states as hopes for a better lot in life inevitably dwindle is registered in this most dazzling of Broadway musicals in another lament in the same song: “I think I go back to San Juan/ Everyone there will give big cheer/Everyone there will have moved here.”

 

Boleros for the Disenchanted concerns Puerto Rican family members whose lives are tracked across nearly a 40-year span. Its first act is set in the small town of Miraflores in 1953, whereas the second act opens in Daleville, Alabama in 1992, where transplanted family members have relocated from the island.

 

In the first act of the play, the parents of Flora (Sonia Tatoyan) anticipate the marriage of their daughter to her local boyfriend, Manuelo (Felix Solis). As chance would have it, Flora’s wedding date is set for two years hence, and she has stringent standards of sexual deportment until that time, while Manuelo has a case of raging hormones. She learns of his infidelities in the neighborhood, while he attempts to justify his behavior by declaring that “man is a creature of instinct,” and, being controlled by demonic forces, “must sin.” Flora, whose standard of love is “complete long-lasting fidelity,” will have none of it, and the relationship with Manuelo seems doomed.

 

Flora meets Eusebio (Joe Minoso), a local boy who has joined the National Guard, and who meets her through a friend of Flora’s, Petra (Lucia Brawley). The two are immediately attracted to one another even as Flora plays the coy virgin and Eusebio is given to such corny ploys as, “You’re words say one thing, but your eyes say something else.” Eusebio returns to Flora’s home to plead for her hand on a dependable knee, while Manuelo appears announcing that he has decided to change his philandering ways for purity out of love for Flora. It is not only too late for him, Flora’s father, Don Fermin (Gary Perez) chases Manuelo with a machete, whereupon the jilted suitor whips out a knife as the two pursue each other around the yard with blades flashing, Cavalleria Rusticana style. Flora’s mother, Dona Milla (Adriana Sevan), looks on in astonishment, her pieties about patience and restraint falling on deaf ears.

 

In the second act, the married couple, Flora (Adriana Sevan) and Eusebio (Gary Perez), have relocated to Alabama. Their lives have taken a turn for the worse, since Eusebio’s excessive drinking atop long-standing diabetes have led to amputations that keep him bedridden permanently. Flora tends to him lovingly, a largesse also illustrated in her becoming a church-sponsored counselor to young married couples like Monica (Lucia Brawley) and Oskar (Joe Minoso) Her faith in her disabled husband’s fidelity is momentarily shattered when he confesses to having more than one affair in the past. Yet even as she becomes unglued, her devotion is strong enough to cling to him through this crisis, not to mention a stroke limiting his power to communicate.

 

Bolero can’t quite convince that the foibles of its characters have anything to do with sociological plights in contrast to the ups and downs of a family’s history that would be the same wherever it unfolded. The hard edge of realities like unemployment and poverty are obliquely referenced, rather than affecting the dramatic action in a palpably immediate way. There are traces of ethnicity thrown in like machete wielding, allusions to witchcraft and love philtres, the ministrations of Catholic priests after presentiments of death, or relocating to America—just in case you make the mistake of thinking the goings on bore any resemblance to characters in, say, The Philadelphia Story (where the wealthy and waspish paterfamilias is also a philanderer without, it should be noted, making too much of it ).

 

The play is more than a tad distasteful in its stereotyping Puerto Rican men as drunken, machete wielding, and philandering suitors and husbands, as if such caricatures were sociological verities or else due to accidents of geography or happenstance. Nor is it quite believable that the play’s odes to enduring love and commitment are mirrored in real life quite so piously. The final tableau of Monica and Oskar walking off into the sunset, like much of the other overly sentimentalized versions of commitment in the play, smacks of soap opera.

 

The acting in Bolero for the Disenchanted ranges from good (Adrianna Sevan, Felix Solis, and Joe Minoso in Act I) to mediocre (Sona Tatoyan in Act I) to the overdrawn or farcical (Gary Perez’s drunken entrance in Act I). Double-casting led to some confusion, as actors were exchanged in differing roles across the time-span.

 

Director Henry Godinez handled the staging of Bolero capably, while composer Gustavo Leone and sound designer Veronika Vorel contributed beautifully to the musical score. Joe Appelt’s lighting creatively accentuated the tropical setting, especially in Act I.

 

Boleros for the Disenchanted had its world premiere at the Yale Repertory Theatre, 1120 Chapel Street, New Haven, on April 25. It runs until May 17. Performances are at 8:00 PM with matinees on Saturdays at 2:00 PM. Tickets are $35 to $58, and can be purchased by calling the box office at (203)-432-1234 or online at yalerep.org.

The Pavilion

David Begelman

Craig Wright’s three-person play The Pavilion is set on a stage that seems too large for the drama unfolding on it. There are several huge windowed doors the Narrator swivels around to set the action at the beginning of the first and second acts. Then there is a broad raked expanse that soars to the heavens upstage. The three performers sometimes appear to be diminutive figures in this setting.

 

On the other hand, the play dwells on ideas that seem to call for something grander to accommodate its characters. And that is precisely its problem. As one of them, the Narrator waxes poetical about ongoing events that are described in a fustian way, seemingly out of whack with what is happening on stage. Nonetheless, he has the magic touch, dimming house lights and even changing time itself with a flick of the wrist. He oversees the action of the other characters.

 

From left, Michael Laurence and Michael Milligan in “The Pavilion” by Craig Wright. Photo by Richard Termine.

The Narrator makes mountains out of molehills. His remarks, in the manner of a Greek chorus, dwell on the relationship between Peter and Kari. Peter is a part-time musician (he treats the audience at the Westport theater to a rendition of his newly composed ditty Down in the Ruined World on the guitar as though it were an assembled group within the play). He is also a therapist, while Kari is a past flame who had an abortion after Peter abandoned her. She is now in a loveless relationship with her husband, Hans.

 

When they reconnect, it is obvious Peter and Kari continue to have a thing for each other, although they come at it from very different perspectives while at the Pavilion, a dance-hall setting for the twenty-year reunion of their class of 1988. Peter is abjectly apologetic, regretting his past decision to abandon Kari, and wants her back. Kari refuses his overtures vehemently, as if her sentiments were recycled T. S. Eliot misgivings: After such knowledge, what forgiveness? (Gerontion), not to mention the Shavian lament: Do you suppose that…what is done can be undone by repentance? (Man and Superman).

 

The aura of a British literary thing is unmistakable. At the outset of the action, the Narrator declares imperiously: “This is the way the universe begins,” as if Mr. Wright were reprising Eliot’s This is the way the world ends (The Hollow Men), albeit with a reverse spin.

 

Kari cannot forgive Peter. More important, she cannot go back to being with him, as though her basis for this were somehow templated in the universe, rather than in the realm of personal decision-making. Mr. Wright’s Narrator seems partial to Kari’s fatalistic approach. Despite his comic bent, he is really a colossal bore. His bon mots are hugely disproportionate to what is going on around him. Addicted to highfalutin talk, his speeches cover the universe, consciousness, morality, love, and forgiveness (not to mention such mouthfuls as Alexander and his Macedonians, blood and knowledge, and the birth of Christ). A bit over the top compared to such remarks of Kari as “I really hate golf.”

 

Sometimes the Narrator is given to tautologies that seem to embody an elusive wisdom: “In the middle of life we find ourselves alive.” At other times, he lapses into incoherence, as when he reminds us that reality is “An infinite number of centers in an infinite number of worlds.” Come again? The comment sounds like someone accidentally wandered into a physics seminar and got the heady palaver about parallel universes all bollixed up.

 

Pavilion smacks of a strain that possibly hearkens back to Craig Wright’s stint at a Minnesota seminary. The dialogue hints at a bias for predestination, the idea that the end is already stamped into everything at the outset. Hence, Kari’s conviction that reuniting in a love relationship with Peter would go against some kind of cosmic blueprint: “For you and I to start over, the whole universe would have to start over.”

 

This just doesn’t ring true. After all, is it the universe or only personal inclination that makes our love relationships possible or not? Is it cosmic time that breaks one’s heart, or is it one’s free decision to have it that way? The playwright’s conviction that he has authored a drama “about a problem that was unsolvable” speaks volumes about the spin he elects to put on the world his characters inhabit.

 

As the Narrator, Peter, and Kari, Michael Milligan, Michael Laurence, and Tracy Middendorf all put in engaging performances. The scene between Peter and Kari at the opening of the second act was well crafted by the playwright, and both performers did a credible job of transitioning from Kari’s aloofness to another, more intimate level of her relationship to Peter. Ms. Middendorf tended to be a bit screechy at the higher vocal register, although there is no denying her talent in depicting a damaged and ambivalent lover.

 

Chad Rabinovitz’s direction was intelligent and accomplished, and the pacing of the show was just right for many of the nuances of interactions among the three characters. Hugh Landwehr’s scenic design was in sync with the playwright’s broader panorama of meanings (as well as being richly endowed with stars and Pavilion lights), while Clifton Taylor’s lighting accentuated marvelously the magic touch of the Narrator managing stage effects across time.

 

Pavilion was previewed at the well-appointed Westport Country Playhouse on May 13th, and officially opened on May 17th. Performances are on Tuesdays at 8 PM, Wednesdays at 2 and 8 PM, Thursdays and Fridays at 8 PM, Saturdays at 4 and 8 PM and Sundays at 3 PM. Single tickets range from $30 to $55, while subscriptions for the remainder of the 2008 season start at $105. Tickets may be purchased by calling the box office at (203)-227-4177, or on the Internet at www.WestportPlayhouse.org.

Romping in the Fifties: Happy Days: A New Musical at Goodspeed Opera House

David Begelman

To put you in the mood for a trip to yesteryear’s hopping decade, Goodspeed Opera House warms you up aplenty. It pipes in fifties ballads over an outside sound system even before you enter its stately theater in East Haddam, CT. Connie Francis is heard warbling Where the Boys Are, as well as Dion and the Belmonts singing Teenager in Love. Its only the beginning of a trip down memory lane for many of us. In the event you’re not completely swallowed up in the time-warp, there is an enormous sign displayed over the front door welcoming you to a 1959 class reunion.

 

And then there is the show itself, a bouncy musical romp based on the television series Happy Days, with its cast of lovables: Richie, Chachie, Potsie, Ralph, Joanie, and, of course, Fonzie, coolest of the leathered set, idol of his peers, and one of a rare, if not virtually non-existent breed: the adorable narcissist. His usual accouterments are Dolores and another indispensable companion. These turn out to be a motorcycle and a pocket comb.

 

With a book by Garry Marshall (the original author of the series) and music and lyrics by Paul Williams, Happy Days involves efforts on the part of its cast of characters to save their local hangout, Arnold’s Drive-In, from closing to make way for a parking lot. Fonzie is chosen to wrestle the intimidating Malachi brothers, a brace of bullies by the improbable names of Jumpy and Myron. Any contest of the ferocious pair with our hero is a sure bet to raise the funds necessary to rescue Arnold’s from condemnation. But Fonzie, unknown to everyone, has a bum knee that puts him on the endangered list in any contest with opponents as fracturing as the Malachis. Fonzie’s initial failure of nerve gives way unsurprisingly to something else in the end, as the audience comes to appreciate.

 

Does it matter much whether some feel this production is flawed? Granted, it is. For starters, it is either overshadowed by, or too reminiscent of its predecessor, Grease. Its musical numbers follow each other too rapidly to allow breathing time for serious character development beyond caricature, and the music, while lively, is not especially memorable. No one walks out of Goodspeed after seeing this show whistling a tune from it that strikes a responsive ear. There is much broad and tasteless humor in the remarks of some of its characters, and cheap one-liners are tossed out like confetti over a bridal twosome.

 

But when it comes to carping too fiercely, you lose the forest for the trees. There is much in this batch of fluff you can savor—mightily. Your wagon should be hitched to what is really enjoyable about the confection. The most notable of its treats is the spectacle of talented triple-threat performers doing their thing in group numbers, many of which are thrilling to watch.

 

Some characterizations are polished ones. Topping the list is the charismatic personality of Fonzie himself (played by Joey Sorge, who, as the strutting yet vulnerable greaser, compares favorably to Henry Winkler, the original Fonz, on a scale of dashing).

 

On the female side, delightful portrayals are turned in by performers who strike unique notes in a gang of luscious hangers-on who, while comely, seem to be along only for the ride. These include Cynthia Ferrer playing Marion Cunningham, the endearing but by now anachronistic housewife, whose driving ambition is to bake pies and otherwise dote on her hard-working husband, Howard, played by Kevin Carolan. (Not for long, however. Marion’s ingenuity in devising colored toilet plungers that could be marketed commercially exhibits all the signs of a nascent feminism, unbeknownst even to her.)

 

Then there is the delightful and energetic Savannah Wise as Joanie, the only character in whom we see a coming of age transition from reticent teenager to an exuberance matching, when not exceeding, the élan of the rest of the whole Milwaukee gang.

 

On the vocal side, you couldn’t ask for a more talented belter than Sandra DeNise, playing Pinky Tuscadero, the estranged girl friend of Fonzie, who comes back to town for a reprise of her romance with him. Ms. DeNise could take on a leading role in Cats, Aida, Rent, Witches, or South Pacific without any of these shows being any the worse for wear vocally.

 

Gordon Greenberg’s face-paced direction added luster to the action, while Michele Lynch’s choreography, especially in the group numbers, was exhilarating and innovative. Special mention should be made of Walt Spangler’s scenic design. Not only imaginatively conceived, it had the advantage of rapid set changes that did not impede the continuity of action, a virtue sorely missing in many productions elsewhere.

 

All in all, and on balance, a fun time despite the flaws. If you can’t get past them, Scrooge you.

 

Happy Days has extended its run to July 4, 2008. Performances run on Wednesdays and Thursdays at 2:00 PM and 7:30 PM, Fridays at 8:00 PM, Saturdays at 3:00 PM and 8:00 PM, and Sundays at 2:00 PM and 6:30 PM on Select Weeks. Tickets are $26 to $63 through the Goodspeed Box Office at 860.873.8668 or online at www.goodspeed.org.

Slapstick with the Office Staff: Scramble! at the Westport Country Playhouse

David Begelman

David Wiltse, author of the peppy two-act, Scramble!, has a lot going for him. He is a virtuoso playwright of the snappy comeback, the mordant quip, the riotous one-liner, the hilarious riposte, the well-timed gag. What he isn’t is a playwright who in this case delivers memorable drama. But so what? Audiences who come away from this comedy shouldn’t have their hopes pitched so high that Scramble! at the Westport Country Playhouse is bound to disappoint expectations for something loftier.  Scramble! is simply a hugely entertaining play about office politics that director Tracy Brigden moves along at such furious and accelerating pace, you have to catch your breath from one waggish moment to the next.  The play is in the honored tradition of farce, not to mention a lineage of comedy that goes back to Plautus, Commedia, Feydeau, and—oh yes, to a playwright of some promise who couldn’t resist installing Mr. Wiltse’s species of humor even in his most serious works: Shakespeare.  The office gang in Scramble! are all played by a talented cast with an accomplished set of techniques. Characters are all over each other trying to save their jobs from being downsized, arranging late night encounters with each other that turn out to be a comedy of errors, and playing one-upsmanship as though there were no end in sight.
Of course, saying that Mr. Wiltse’s brand of comedy has an older provenance is hardly a basis for showering accolades on Scramble!; one has to judge the play on its own merits.
Even so, this comedy, with its bouncy musical score, doesn’t come off badly at all. Audience members who may have emerged from the theater grumbling that it wasn’t a Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Odd Couple, or The Cherry Orchard, probably had to muffle their sniggers lest anyone discover they were actually having a good time of it—or on occasion rolling in the aisles, as the case may be.
The six characters in Scramble! come together in two small offices of a golf magazine. There is discernable tension in the air, either because some of them doubt their writing abilities, like Carter (played frenetically by Matthew Rauch) who frets, “What other magazine would hire a writer who can’t write?”, or speak in an unintelligible babble when put on the spot, like Jane (played with spastic élan by Rebecca Harris who, as office klutz, manages to get her foot stuck in a basket and bump into walls without her glasses).
Carter has taken a shine to the comely Temple (played deliciously by Jennifer Mudge), an office worker who hankers for becoming managing editor. She also uses her feminine wiles to flirt with, only to rebuff Carter, as well as lord over Jane in a continually lopsided relationship. Allergic to flowers, Temple is always on the verge of a sneezing jag when bouquets are brought into the office.
Otis, the son of the founder of the magazine (played with a hilarious flair for one-liners by Colin McPhillamy) is a Brit who takes a shine to the office staff, and has a penchant for forgetting a crucial word in any remark he consistently fails to complete.
All three office workers cower before Sam, the managing director (played with a hard-nosed and bullying mien by Candy Buckley), who keeps everyone on their toes. At one point in the first act, she indicates that a message about downsizing has come from above, and weeding out the unfit will have to be the order of the day in the near future. If the staff was not a batch of nervous Nellies before, Sam’s alarming message raises their anxiety to a new level.
Into this mélange of jittery folks, steps Johnson (played with unassuming perfection by Tom Beckett), the quintessential nerd down to the way he dresses, parts his hair, or stammers his words. He also has a habit of taking notes he records in a carefully guarded memo book. Others interpret this as his being the ax man who is getting the goods on all for the bosses upstairs.
Then the action takes off, especially in the second act, when characters go in and out of doors to a storeroom, noisily upsetting golfing supplies, or move on and off stage in a well timed sequence of entrances and exits choreographed by Mark Olsen. They also arrange to meet in secret rendezvouses at 9:00 PM in which the unexpected person invariably turns up just to illustrate how often things go wrong with best laid plans. It is all delirious confusion, and about as slapstick as director Tracy Brigden can get. Then again, you’ve got to have a deft handle on the action to organize confusion as skillfully as this director.
Johnson, of course, turns out not to be the real ax man. When the latter’s true identity is revealed, everyone is enormously relieved to discover that the corporate executioner has taken such a shine to the office staff, no one will be cashiered, and the entire group exits singing “The Continental.” Silly, to be sure. But, what the hell, does it have to be anything other than silly for you to have some fun and a gaggle of belly laughs?
Scramble! Opened at the Westport Country Playhouse on July 9, and perfomances continue to July 26, 2008. Performances on Tuesday are at 8 PM, Wednesday at 2 and 8 PM, Thursday and Friday at 8 PM, Saturday at 4 and 8 PM, and Sunday at 3 PM. Reservations may be made by calling the box office at 203.227.4177, or online at www.westportplayhouse.org

The Full Monty at TriArts Sharon Playhouse

David Begelman

The 1997 British film The Full Monty, like countless movies turned into musicals, was one in which everything came together in the most delightful way. My hunch is that its production team had no idea of what a resounding success it would become. Of course, it had the advantage of an talented English cast, including Robert Carlyle, Tom Wilkinson, and Mark Addy. But their obvious abilities only enhanced what was already a damn good script. And then there was the sound track, including the incomparable Tom Jones with his rendition of numbers like You Can Leave Your Hat On.

 

The film tells the story of a group of unemployed steel workers in Sheffield, Yorkshire, who hit upon the idea of becoming strippers—with a difference. Their attraction would be to titillate female audiences with a final display of stark nudity (“the Full Monty”), rather than only suggestive strip-tease, as popularized by such American groups as The Chippendales.

 

David Yazbek’s and Terrence McNally’s musical adaptation of the film is one that sticks remarkably close to the story line of the film, except its characters are unemployed Americans in Buffalo. The show broke box office records internationally, and was staged in Hong Kong, Iceland, Spain, Canada, Greece, and South Korea—not, understandably, always in English. It garnered nine Tony Award nominations, eleven Drama Desk Award nominations, and a Theatre World Award.

 

The TriArts production of the musical packs as dazzling a wallop as you’re likely to see this season in theaters around Connecticut. The Full Monty at Sharon Playhouse will have you bouncing out of your seat from the instant the curtain goes up. Except there is no curtain initially, only a stage adorned with rather drab and rusting steel beams that give no hint of what is to come: a rollicking, hilarious, and completely satisfying evening in the theater.

 

Not that the Yazbek/McNally musical is without drawbacks. The show tends to be overly long. Some of its scenes as written drag on or smack of redundancy, as when husbands and wives or the two gay members of the group sing duets dripping with more sentimentality than you’re ready to digest. Songs are clever, lilting, and well-suited to ongoing action, if not particularly memorable. All of which is beside the point when it comes to the TriArts production itself.

 

The performers deliver a smash, and they look so good on stage, it’s hard to believe that only two cast members are Actor’s Equity performers. These are Scott Laska as Jerry, reprising the Robert Carlyle role of “Gaz” in the film, and Richard Waits as Noah “Horse” T. Simmons, the only black member of the group. If other routines in the show were enjoyable to watch, Mr. Waits’s rendition of “Big Black Man” was as close to sensational as you get: a number in which Horse’s musicality and gift for movement break through the orthopedic problems forever plaguing his dance routines.

 

The show, like the movie (which forfeited an Academy Award to that lumbering and overfinanced pachyderm, Titanic), blends humor with poignancy. It actually covers a wide range of issues, including father rights, male bonding, unemployment, gender issues, depression, impotency, and suicide, although even this last theme is turned humorously on its head during the course of the action.

 

Mr. Laska’s Jerry is the central role in the show, and this performer is always a pleasure to watch on stage, as well as impressive in his vocal numbers, despite some difficulty in the higher register.

 

Jerry comes up with the idea of forming a male strip-tease group that will call itself “Hard Steel.” His plan is sparked by the need to make the money to redeem himself. He wants to show his wife Pam (played convincingly by Lori J. Belter) that he can be a provider, rather than being unemployed and shiftless. The reformation will also prevent him from getting distanced from his son, Nathan (played exceptionally well by 12 year old Jack C. DiFalco, and comparing favorably with young William Snape’s ingenuous portrayal in the film.)

 

Other members of the cast contribute solidly to the success of the TriArts production. Mention should be made of all the strippers, including Jason Winfield as Ethan (whose attempts to do somersaults off walls like Donald O’Connor in Singing in the Rain always end in bodily disaster short of concussion), Michael Dunn as a believable and thin-skinned Malcolm, Michael Britt as Harold, a husband who cannot bring himself to let his wife know he has been unemployed, but especially Andy Lindberg as Dave, a begrudging stripper who has a hard time getting past his impotence, obesity, and a temporary crisis with his adoring wife before his final one-night-only stand.

 

Glenda Lauten as Jeanette, the strippers’ accompanist, was a real presence on stage—when she wasn’t dimly visible as a pile of red hair behind her piano. Ms. Lauten is a terrific belter, and a pro at caustic quips that had the audience close to losing it. Accompanying the strippers on the keyboard she observes laconically: “Jeez, this is like working with Lawrence Welk!”

 

This reviewer was most impressed by Bob Durkin’s capable direction and choreography and Michael Berkeley’s musical direction. His offstage orchestra of seven other instrumentalists gave the show a shine that would have been sorely missed without it. Chris Dallos’s lighting design was tremendously effective in highlighting the action on stage. Erik D. Diaz’s scenic design was innovative, and only occasionally encumbered by shifting sets on a darkened stage with silhouetted extras moving things about, a sometime handicap of intricate sets in productions elsewhere.

 

The Full Monty opened on June 19, and continues through July 6, 2008 at Sharon’s TriArts Playhouse. Tickets can be purchased on the internet www.triarts.net or calling 860.364.SHOW

Over the Rainbow at Waterbury’s Palace Theater

 

David Begelman

 

Certain ground rules in the theater are so elementary, they are forgone conclusions. Among these is the axiom that any fresh adaptation of MGM’s 1939 treasure The Wizard of Oz is going to fall far short of the caliber of this American film masterpiece.

That being said, what is there to say about the NETworks Presentations production of L. Frank Baum’s classic story, newly adapted by John Kane and staged by Nigel West at the Palace Theater? The answer is: plenty.

 

Ushered to his seat in Waterbury’s palatial Palace Theater, this reviewer saw it jammed with over 800 audience members. Not the least of the eager crowd was a generous supply of tots, either scurrying about the aisles or else carried by doting parents to their seats munching candy (when not sucking thumbs), and decked out in their Sunday finery. One 3 year-old was dressed as Dorothy, ruby slippers and all. Awaiting the treat in store for them, they were not disappointed after the curtain went up. Nor was yours truly. Expecting another dreary show for kids, he marveled at what was delivered on stage.

 

The surprising thing about this traveling production was not only its array of capable non-equity actors and dancers, but the visually stunning scenic and sound effects engineered by Lighting Designer Bob Bonniol, Tim McQuillan-Wright’s set and costumes, Shannon Slaton’s sound design, Second Home Productions artful Projections, J & M’s Special Effects, Nate Patten’s musical direction, and others in a team of collaborators on production values who continually put their best foot forward.

As a case in point, the tornado scene at the beginning of Wizard, up to Dorothy’s landing in Munchkindland was an optical and sound delight. A bit scary, it compared favorably to its treatment in the Victor Fleming film. Projected onto a huge scrim, Dorothy’s cabin whirled around to the din of a tornado horrific in its intensity.

 

Cassie Okenka played Dorothy, and her Scene 2 rendition of Over the Rainbow was a heartfelt interpretation of one of the most celebrated songs in the American canon of music. (And, unlike a generation of rock stars, sung on pitch!)

 

There is not enough to say about the individual characterizations of the Scarecrow, the Tin man, and the Cowardly Lion by Noah Aberlin, Chris Kind, and Jason Simon (whose sturdy baritone might well have been the envy of Bert Lahr, were he still alive). While they for the most part reprised the dialogue and songs we are all familiar with in the film, their portrayals were accomplished and satisfying.

 

Kudos go to Pat Sibley in the dual roles of Elvira Gulch and the Wicked Witch of the West (Broadway has gone ape over witches lately, due no doubt to the inspired example of Margaret Hamilton in the 1939 film).

 

As the land-rich bitch murderously intent on dispatching Dorothy’s dog Toto (who quite appropriately took a bite out of her early on), Ms. Sibley was later suitably intimidating as the green-faced monster. She hurled bolts of fire at Scarecrow from thatched rooftops, cavorted with winged monkeys abjectly attentive to her every bidding, and met her dissolving demise in her castle at the hands of Dorothy wielding a mere pail of water.

 

Mention should also be made of the avuncular Professor Marvel and the Wizard of Oz, played by Robert John Biedermann, (reprising admirably the roles created by the unforgettable Frank Morgan), and performers Caitlin Maloney, Bruce Warren, and Bruce Warren as Aunt Em, Uncle Henry, and the Emerald City Guard: all portrayals a sheer delight.

 

Caitlin Maloney also doubled as Glinda, the Good Witch of the North, showering her kindness on Dorothy from a circular chariot that descended miraculously as if from the heavens—with, unlike Billie Burke in the original film, a solid singing voice to match!

The current version of Wizard added to the dialogue of the film. When Elvira Gulch makes off with Toto (a real trouper himself, and in this production always on cue when it comes to his darting entrances and exits), Dorothy berates all about her on the farm for causing her pet’s plight; and when Uncle Henry is informed about Elvira’s complaints to the county sheriff about Toto, he queries, “Was he sober?”

 

Sometimes the changes work, as in Scarecrow’s added number after Dorothy frees him in the cornfield. There is the addition of three singing crows, played with a jazzed-up élan by Robert Conte, Beau Hutchins, and Timothy McNeill. And the apple-tossing trees of the film are morphed into three leafy sirens, played by Lauryn Ciardullo, Jessa Rose, and Sara Ruzicka. The threesome goes on the make for Scarecrow with suggestive bumps and grinds, in preference to merely grousing in the forest.

 

At other times, the additions strike a discordant note, like the chorus of ballet dancers who appear when Dorothy and her friends are on the way to Emerald City (also a green delight in this production). Pirouettes and pas de deux around the drowsy foursome in poppy fields by couples seemingly recruited from a ballet corps seems oddly out of keeping with the intended atmosphere of bedevilment.

 

But make no mistake about it: this two and a half hour show is not to be missed, even if your exposure to the MGM film has been a repeated affair. And take your kids with you, ruby slippers and all.

 

The Wizard of Oz plays at the Palace Theater, 100 east Main Street, Waterbury, CT 06702, during the months of November and December. Matinees are at 1:00 PM, and evening performances at 6:30 PM. Reservations may be made by calling the box office at 203.755.8483.