REVIEWS ...
Monday, April 23, 2001
Energized performance fires up 'Tom Paine'
By Christine Dolen
cdolen@herald.com
Early in Citizen Tom Paine, the Howard Fast historical drama now at GableStage, Benjamin Franklin assesses revolutionary-to-be Paine as "aggressive, provocative, petulant and rhetorical."
Astute judge of character. And that's the way actor Bob Rogerson plays Paine, the writer-philosopher whose famous work Common Sense helped fuel the American Revolution.
Rogerson's is an energized and energizing performance, the chief reason for anyone not part of a school audience to see Citizen Tom Paine. Fast's 1986 script, inspired by his 1943 novel of the same title, is GableStage's annual production performed for bused-in groups of Miami-Dade County students, and it's that audience that will probably find the play most compelling.
Fast's play tracks Paine's life from 1774, when he sought a letter of introduction from Franklin to smooth his way from England to a new life in the American colonies, to his death in 1809 as a pauper reviled for his writings on religion in The Age of Reason.
Why Fast would be drawn to Paine as a subject -- and why director Joseph Adler would be drawn to the play -- is clear. The playwright paints a portrait of Paine as a man who passionately argued for his beliefs and who found self-censorship next to impossible.
Fast, whose novel Spartacus was the basis for Stanley Kubrick's great gladiator movie, was once a Communist Party member who did jail time after refusing to name names before the House Un-American Activities Committee. Adler is similarly passionate, outspoken, unafraid to offend. Philosophically, the historical figure, the playwright and the director are a perfect fit.
If only the play were a little more dynamic, a little less like a history lesson.
Rogerson, who plays Paine as a shaggy-haired firebrand, carries us along on Paine's journey through sheer dynamism.
We see him nearly talk himself out of a first job in Philadelphia because of his penchant for complaining. Initially Paine, the play suggests, whose 16 pamphlets entitled The Crisis kept fueling a sometimes sputtering revolution.
In the second act, we follow Paine's further revolutionary adventures in France. His refusal to sign the order calling for the beheading of the king and queen lands Paine himself in prison, awaiting a date with the guillotine. After his release, he manages to infuriate Napoleon Bonaparte (Schroeder) -- not a good idea in France -- by refusing to advocate the overthrow of England. And he offends devout people everywhere with The Age of Reason.
Produced in an effectively minimalist style -- Lyle Baskin's faint Philadelphia cityscape graces the brick back wall; Anne Toewe's costumes suggest class as well as time and place -- Citizen Tom Paine sometimes devolves into historical pageantry. Yet thanks to Rogerson, it also has moments of incandescent passion.
Christine Dolen is The Herald's theater critic.
Tuesday, April 24, 2001
Revolutionary fire lukewarm in 'Tom Paine'
By Jack Zink, Theater Critic
If history comes alive on TV, as one channel's motto boasts, then you can reach out and touch it at the GableStage for the next month.
The Coral Gables theater company revives Howard Fast's historical drama Citizen Tom Paine, about the real-life firebrand whose political essays, especially Common Sense, helped set the stage for the American Revolution. Bob Rogerson's Paine rants and rails with a conviction that's a mix of '60s counterculture demonstrator and modern street rap artist, happiest when dishing out anti-establishment spit and venom.
But Rogerson's generally commendable performance accelerates too hard on the straightaways, and skids heading into the corners. That's because he's revved up to drag director Joseph Adler's whole production along behind him. It's not something Rogerson should be required to do.
The remainder of the 10-member cast is expected to perform with more versatility and range than they are equipped to handle. One moment, they're the blustery members of the Continental Congress. In the next they're backwoods soldier boys or Philadelphia townsfolk. Blink and they reappear sputtering Parisian accents in the midst of the French Revolution.
The ensemble does follow willingly behind Rogerson, and some manage to keep pace with him. Ken Clement is credible as Benjamin Franklin, and downright sympathetic as a German beheaded by the French revolutionaries he supported. George Schiavone is the half-unwilling Philadelphia printer who gives Paine his first chance to rouse the colonial rabble.
Citizen Tom Paine was adapted for the stage in 1986 by Fast from his 1943 novel. It's pure narrative history laid out as clearly as a high school civics lesson. It's a fine vehicle for its weekday role as the GableStage's annual educational program, performed for bused-in students from area schools. But the pageantry won't be as fulfilling for weekend audiences paying full freight.
Production values are good, with impressive period costumes by Anne Toewe, evocative sound effects by Nate Rausch and lighting by Travis Neff. Lyle Baskin's set is dominated by a large red-brick wall, on which is painted a mural of old row houses. The dominant feature at first, it soon becomes an effective backdrop for smaller indoor scenic elements wheeled in front.
Fast traces the dramatic arc of Paine's life story with grit and the virtue of truth. His script echoes -- and quotes -- Benjamin Franklin's belated credit to Paine as the unheralded force behind the Declaration of Independence and the formation of our republic.
Paine later tries to duplicate his achievements in the French Revolution, only to watch it careen into a reign of terror. He writes The Age of Reason from a prison cell, which ruins his return to America. Fast's stage narrative muses over the question whether Paine's iconoclasm was as much a tragic flaw as a gift, before giving the edge to the latter. A similar edge goes to Rogerson.
Jack Zink can be reached at jzink@sun-sentinel.com or 954-356-4706.
Thursday, May 3, 2001
Rebel with a One-World Cause
Or, The Life of the Underappreciated Man Who Brought Us Life and Liberty
By Mia Leonin
Where were Howard Fast, Joe Adler, and Bob Rogerson when Mr. Nelson, my high school history teacher/wrestling coach, sidled up to the lectern to teach the American Revolution? That war, as I remember it, was a series of lively anecdotes about converting Boston Harbor into a giant cup of Earl Grey and Paul Revere burning the midnight oil. No one ever explained the knickers, powdered wigs, or the Continental Congress. In fact Mr. Nelson whipped through the Declaration of Independence, glossed over the Civil War, and hurried toward the really important stuff: Pearl Harbor and Vietnam. Watching GableStage's production of Howard Fast's Citizen Tom Paine (starring Bob Rogerson as Paine) reminded me how much better I might have understood those later lessons had I comprehended the war that transformed a British colony into the United States of America.
Things your history teacher/wrestling coach may not have taught you: Slaves were openly bought and sold as early as 1774 and as far to the north as the City of Brotherly Love, Philadelphia. At first many of our early political leaders did not consider themselves "American" but rather loyal subjects of England. Paine's pamphlet Common Sense was the basis for Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence, and he was instrumental in America's defeat of the British. The firebrand used propaganda to garner the support of King Louis XVI of France, among others, and later helped the French fight their own revolution.
Fast's play, derived from his novel of the same title, depicts Paine's arrival in America from England, his involvement in the American and French revolutions, and his last, lonely days in New York. The first act follows him through his independence activities (including publishing truly traitorous papers) in Philadelphia. The second half of the play deals with his time in France, including his imprisonment and his meeting with Napoleon Bonaparte. Paine's return to England, where he was accused of sedition and had to flee to escape the gallows, is only alluded to at the beginning of the second act -- a smart decision on the playwright's part, as we have our hands full following Paine as it is.
Upon arriving in America, Paine quickly developed a reputation as a rabble-rouser and political visionary. His pamphlet Common Sense ardently opposed slavery, as well as any form of monarchy. And indeed it was the common people who saw him as a freedom fighter. The men in power, however, saw him as a threat. Throughout the play we get to watch Paine match wits with the likes of Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, and Napoleon. While walking out of the theater, more than one person sighed, "Well, we got our history lesson." In a sense every play is a history lesson because it takes place at a certain moment in time and, consequently, reflects a particular set of socioeconomic, political, and cultural circumstances. But Citizen Tom Paine feels especially historical. It's not every day you see Napoleon and Thomas Jefferson stomping across the same stage in knickers. The challenge: to keep from turning the theater into a lectern or something reminiscent of an ABC Afterschool Special. The ultimate goal of a historical drama is to recover the characters from a particular era and reveal them in a new light, not merely to approximate history. It is not through clever costuming and stage design that we re-create history, but rather through characterization. Although GableStage's production lacks subtlety and innovation in the former, it greatly succeeds in the latter.
Artistic director Joe Adler has chosen his Tom Paine well, and that makes all the difference in this play's overall success. Rogerson's skill as an actor and Fast's thorough and compelling script together prevent Citizen Tom Paine from becoming a bored staged history lesson. Fast incorporates the use of the aside throughout the play, and Rogerson has a talent for making good use of it. At various moments he turns and speaks directly to the audience. His Paine confides, explains, complains, and jokes with us. This serves more than one purpose. Namely it prevents Paine from appearing to be a detached, calcified historical figure.
Paine is neither gentleman nor intellectual. He is an outcast, a slovenly, flask-toting hothead. Fast has scripted Paine to be more than just a bit human, and Adler ably follows the script's lead, giving Rogerson a lot of latitude to have fun with this role. At one point a door onstage didn't close properly; instead of ignoring it and moving on with his lines, he made a point of going back and slamming the door, just as Paine would have done. It's this physicality that keeps the audience from realizing and lamenting the fact that 90 percent of Rogerson's stage time is spent pontificating. In GableStage's Popcorn Rogerson played a tortured idealist from a different era, with the same degree of professionalism and finesse.
The asides also make economic use of time: They fill us in on history without having to weave it into the dialogue or make long digressions into monologues. Rogerson makes the audience both accomplice and confidant. Early on Paine stops beside a table of men talking, turns to the audience, and confides: "From the look of it, five men sitting around the table of one of the best coffeehouses in Philadelphia...." He then goes on to introduce the members of the Continental Congress, revealing their hypocritical ways and corrupt political ideals.
One word about accents: Either do them almost perfectly or don't do them at all. The decision not to give Paine a British accent would have been better made across the board. George Schiavone's accent, which he uses in his portrayal of Paine's first publisher, careens from Welsh- to Slavic-sounding. The play's second half, a fascinating portrayal of the French Revolution and Paine's reaction to it, is muddled by the clamor of French accents à la Pepe Le Pew. Paine's exchange with Napoleon (Greg Schroeder plays a petulant and convincing little general) is an insightful one: We can see the roots of Marxism, socialism, and totalitarianism all in one conversation. But the second act doesn't carry as much weight as it could because of these faux accents. Ken Clement is engaging and compelling as Ben Franklin (it's no small task to play the man on the hundred-dollar bill without looking like a cartoon character) and later as the German thinker Anacharsis Clootz.
Unfortunately something seems unnatural about the rest of the supporting players, who appear to be acting out their part in history instead of inhabiting their characters. Besides the unconvincing accents, the secondary characters don't receive much stage time. The music and costuming are so strictly adherent to the time period that these brief appearances feel almost like cameos, and they distract the audience from what's really happening. Knickers, powdered wigs, white stockings, and buckled shoes accompanied by the sounds of snare drums and cannons being fired overshadow the dramatic presence of these actors, turning them into stereotypes. Paine's character is so big that, despite the play's cast of ten, it sometimes seems like a one-man show. It would have been interesting to see the characters dressed in subtler garb (and accompanied by music that creates an intriguing contrast) so their personas might emerge and carry a little more of the dramatic energy.
Ultimately Citizen Tom Paine succeeds in making the juxtaposition of Philadelphia 1774 and Coral Gables 2001 a real and necessary one. At the beginning of the play, Adler took special care to emphasize how important it is to put on this production. Having seen the play and after having done a little research on Fast, I understand why. Like Paine, novelist and playwright Howard Fast has been condemned for his outspoken opinions. In the Forties officials tried to ban Citizen Tom Paine from the New York City public school libraries. Fast was barred from speaking engagements and refused a passport to travel outside the United States -- all as a result of his membership in an antifascist committee and the subsequent communist witch-hunt that landed him in prison for three months.
History not only repeats itself; it relocates itself. We do not have to wait 300 years to see three different renegades cross paths on one stage: the life of Paine; the spirit of Fast; and the presence of Adler, who was one of the first and most vehement voices to stand up against Miami-Dade County's Cuba ordinance, which prohibited the use of county funds or facilities to present Cuban artists and their affiliates.
Ironically the radical Paine, who has all but been erased from American history, seems to be making a comeback. Jon Katz of Wired magazine claims: "Thomas Paine was one of the first journalists to use media as a weapon against the entrenched power structure. He should be resurrected as the moral father of the Internet." He goes on to point out that the Internet offers what Paine fought for: "a vast, diverse, passionate, global means of transmitting ideas and opening minds." I would add that this rebel-rouser from the 1700s, a corset-maker's son, was among the first to conceive of what today is called globalization. When Paine proclaimed "I am a citizen of the world; the world is my village," it was not just a Walt Whitman-esque sentiment. The statement reveals the core of his anti-monarchial beliefs and almost cost him his life on more than one occasion.
