[NEohioPAL] REVIEW: RFK at Canton Players Guild Theatre

[Tom Wachunas via NEohioPAL]

 A Tool for the Living
by Tom Wachunas
   “Let us dedicate ourselves to what theGreeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentlethe life of this world.” – Robert F. Kennedy
   “Memory is the mother of all wisdom”  - Aeschylus
   “Those who cannot remember the past arecondemned to repeat it.”  - GeorgeSantayana (1905)
   Program notes, ‘THE ACTION OF THE PLAY,’provided by Players Guild Theatre: “By late summer, 1964, Attorney GeneralRobert F. Kennedy was a deeply wounded man. Still in shock and consumed withgrief and guilt over the assassination of his older brother, President John F.Kennedy, on November 22nd, 1963, in Dallas, Texas, he was at acrossroads. The 1964 presidential election was approaching and President LyndonJohnson, who had been dangling the possibility of a vice-presidential role toRFK, finally called Kennedy over to the White House to tell him his decision.The result of that meeting and the subsequent direction for the next, and last,four years of Robert Kennedy’s life are the focus of this play.” 

   It can’t be mere serendipity that thefirst two productions of Canton’s Players Guild Theatre’s 2016-2017 season aresuch timely, gripping looks at things presidential. ‘Tis the season of our discontent.So let’s just call it sagacious programming on the part of the Players Guild.In September, the Assassins was achilling exposition of our culture’s spiritual poverty. And now, on the cusp ofa viciously divisive presidential election, we have RFK, a one-man play written by Jack Holmes (from 2005). It’s aneven more searing examination of the sociopolitical malaise that defined notonly our past, but our tumultuous present as well.
   I still vividlyremember Robert Kennedy - the man, and his turbulent times. I was just matureenough (a high school junior) to study and admire him, even to the point ofpainting an oil portrait of him (which I still own and treasure) within weeksafter his assassination on June 5, 1968. So yes, this play is unabashedlynostalgic in its sensibilities, and yet never saccharine or cloying.
   The action flipsback and forth – not unlike flashbacks in a documentary film - between Kennedy’smemories of both public and private episodes, taking us up to his victory in theDemocratic presidential primary in California. In many ways we get amicro-history of his thoughts and actions that transpired through such pivotaland cathartic developments as The Bay of Pigs, the Civil Rights Movement, theassassinations of his brother in 1963 and Martin Luther King in 1968, and thewar in Viet Nam, among others. 

   To his whollyriveting portrayal of Robert Kennedy, Aaron Brown brings  new meaning to “becoming the character.” Theprocess must surely have been a daunting one. But in the end, Brown hasmasterfully crafted an intensely expressive picture of Kennedy’s physical andpsychological demeanors, including the distinctive affect of his Boston accent,his often tired gait, his propensity for righteous rage peppered with impishwitticisms - all delivered with arresting, at times even startling credibility.
    Particularly engaging is how the writtennarrative assigns a role to us in the audience and constantly re-positions ourplace in the action. In some passages we’re citizens of another country, or alocal American crowd on the campaign trail. In others we’re the patientproducers of a challenging promotional TV ad, or contentious colleagues on theSenate floor. In still others we might be guests at a social gathering, belovedfamily members, or reporters interviewing him in his living room. 

    Interwoven withthese contextual shifts, though, is an overarching sense that we might well be the pages, as it were,of a journal, or perhaps even Kennedy’s conscience. As such we’re privy to hismost fragile and tender reminiscences, as well as his deepest philosophizing.We hear Kennedy quote the ancient Greek poet and playwright, Aeschylus, severaltimes throughout the evening. And interestingly enough, Aeschylus is often referencedby scholars as the “father of tragedy.” This in turn makes for a bittersweetconnecting to Kennedy’s returning, more than once, to his haunting thought,“Tragedy is a tool for the living…”  

  This production is muchmore than sentimental entertainment. It is eminently compelling art - a still relevant(heartbreakingly so) and urgent call to identify, nurture, and emulate whatAbraham Lincoln once called “…our nature’s better angels.” Angels who, perhaps,fled our midst long ago.       RFK, at CantonPlayers Guild’s William G. Fry Theatre, 1001 Market Avenue N., Canton, Ohio /Shows THROUGH NOVEMBER 13 – Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m., Sunday at 2 p.m. /SINGLE TICKETS $17 / $13 for ages 17 and younger / Order at  www.playersguildtheatre.com  or call 330.453.7617 

   For othercommentaries on the arts by Tom Wachunas in the greater Canton area, pleasevisit is blog, ARTWACH, at www.artwach.blogspot.com
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