BRAVO? NOT SO MUCH
History reduced to hectoring
REVIEW
Bravo Theatre: Shadow Written by: Blaine Newton Directed by: John Hudson Starring: Mark Kunji Ikeda, Glenn Nelson, Liana Shannon, Aaron Talbot Where: Backstage Theatre, ATB Financial Arts Barns, 10330 84 Ave. Running: through Feb. 7 Tickets: TIX on the Square (780-4201757, tixonthesquare.ca)
Bravo — a new play named for a bomb detonation and not a theatrical cheer, significantly — illustrates a depressing moment in human history.
In a flurry of Cold War paranoia and one-upmanship in 1954, the U.S. unleashed a test hydrogen bomb in the Marshall Islands, an American “trust territory” in the middle of the Pacific. The American military neglected to relocate the natives, who quickly showed the terrible signs of radiation sickness. A coverup, leaks, denial, out-and-out lying ensued immediately. This meant that once it was beyond “plausible deniability” that the victims existed, they didn’t get treated; they got studied. And this: Blinkered by the political mantra of “maintaining our edge on the Russians,” contemporary science was completely inadequate to assessing the long-term ripple effect of the consequences.
Yes, a depressing story; when ’50s pot roast is comic relief you know you’re in for a drubbing. The play, by Red Deer’s Blaine Newton, sets about revisiting this ignominious Bravo bomb event and its spinoffs. This is a worthy educational initiative, which includes such talking points as the co-opting of science and the press by political/military expediencies, the ’50s patriarchy as it impinges on the family, systemic racism of a world view, wilful ignorance about the environment and the food supply, combined with official misinformation and lying.
Bravo has irony and outrage on its side — not to mention a certain hectoring tone — vis-à-vis all of the above. All of the above, incidentally, are BAD.
Bravo the bomb demonstrates that there’s no stopping fallout. What Bravo the play demonstrates in the end is fallout of another kind: it happens to drama when characters are at the service of putting a face on history, with a point of view established in advance instead of lives and conflicts of their own.
There’s an unlettered Japanese fisherman victim (Mark Kunji Ikeda), who describes the unexplained horrors of the fateful day. There’s Strauss (Glenn Nelson), head of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, a bluff and hearty stonewalling politico, who repeats “national security” and “routine test” at press conferences till it flattens questions. He then returns to his office to yell at his clerk, furiously, and thereby underscore the point that political ideology demands the official dissemination of the false. The Clerk (Aaron Talbot), a sort of executive assistant type, gives him pointers in spin-doctoring and doublespeak. When this turns into baldfaced lying, the Clerk feels guilty and goes home morosely to his neglected wife (Liana Shannon).
OK, you’re someone in Canada who’s been alive in this century. But if, somehow, it isn’t clear to you that this scenario has modern applications, Bravo is there for you. It ups the ante by weaving in scenes at a modern university, to explain still further. An anthropology lecturer (Shannon, in the play’s most thankless role) is, well, lecturing. Her exchanges with a heckling student (Talbot), who for some unstudent-like reason takes up the “national security” status quo side of the argument, are among the play’s dreariest and most artificial.
John Hudson’s Shadow production is graced with Dave Clarke’s sinister sound design and a vivid series of video productions, both atmospheric and documentary. Matt Curie’s lighting is on the money. No one gets a set design credit in the program, which is understandable.
Good actors try. Hard. As Strauss, the most energetic of characters, Nelson nails the idea that heartiness and choler are obverse sides of the same personality. He gets a lot of stage time to repeat this insight. As the Clerk, Talbot looks stricken, like he’s eaten a bad cashew.
The intentions of Bravo are worthwhile. There’s a devastating story at the heart of it, but when it’s used as the text of the piece and the dialogue, drama tends to wither. It’s revealing that the little scene where Shannon as Clerk’s wife laments the toll of his overwork on the family — a moment that you and she realize together you’re seeing a man who’s sold his soul — is one of Bravo’s best.
The characters come alive at that moment. It’s no accident that it’s on the periphery and it’s the one you take home.