Miller Lite

A real head-scratcher: Gretchen Egolf and Patrick Husted try to work out Miller's clumsy script.

by David Anthony Fox

How, I wonder, would we respond to Resurrection Blues if we didn't know it to be the work of that most sacred of cows, Arthur Miller? Would our prestigious Wilma Theater have presented it (as the inaugural offering of their 25th anniversary season, yet)? Would the opening-night audience have oohed and ahhed with such reverent -- if progressively more forced -- enthusiasm?

I doubt it. For myself, I might have imagined Blues as the winning entry in some student playwriting competition, which is both good and bad: The creative energy and moral fervor speak well for the still-feisty-at-87-year-old. But the naiveté, literary clumsiness and limited imagination are shocking, coming as they do from the hand of the playwright often touted as America's master craftsman.

Blues is set in the present day in a mythical South American country. General Felix Barriaux (Munson Hicks), a fatuous, Viagra-needing dictator, has imprisoned a man -- part altruist, part political rebel -- believed by many to be a holy savior. Appropriately enough, the general plans to have him crucified. Moreover, he (the general, that is) has accepted $25 million from an American television company that plans to televise the crucifixion, anticipating a sure-fire sweeps-week winner.

As events unfold, the focus shifts to the nature of the holy man himself. He remains unseen and unnamed (or more correctly, many named: We're told he calls himself everything from Francisco to Ralph), but Jeanine (Patricia Ageheim), the general's suicidal niece (and another rebel) is certain he's the real thing. Even Henri (Jeanine's father and the general's brother, played by Patrick Husted) is torn by conflicting loyalties.

As the above suggests, Blues explores two different terrains. Initially it is a satire on the media's vulgarity and excessive consumerism. Latterly, Miller's script seems influenced by Shaw's Saint Joan: The topics here are goodness, godliness, politics and the way a society reconstructs these qualities to reflect its own needs.

Unsurprisingly, Miller is better at the latter, preachier part. There's some poignant lyrical writing that reminds us of his skill. "I hear they finally believe in death in New York. Before, life was too good to end at least, below 91st Street," says Jeanine, which is as trenchant a line about 9/11 as I've heard in the theater.

But the media satire is a disaster. Apart from its utter implausibility, there's Miller's relentless penchant for overstatement. The dictator is impotent get it? We learn that the country is stricken three times over: Something is poisoning its youth, who mysteriously turn orange-haired; there's terrible air pollution; and leaking water is undermining the "foundations of the neighborhood." (Any one of these symbolic catastrophes is one more than we need.)

Another problem: Blues is (that is, it purports to be) a comedy. Miller has always been notable for his profound humorlessness, a feature of even his better work. If you imagined that this octogenarian was not likely to suddenly turn funny, you'd be right. The tone is off, the few actual jokes are juvenile or hoary ("This dog won't hunt," says the dictator of his dysfunctional penis), and were it not for director Jiri Zizka coaxing an overlay of drollery from his performers, I doubt the audience would even know when they're supposed to laugh.

Ah, yes -- the production. Any director would be flummoxed by this material, but it appears Zizka has paid it almost no attention. His actors deliver disengaged, staccato line readings. This is probably meant to suggest Beckett, but actually looks more like cheap sitcom stuff, and it does nothing to help us care about the characters or their problems. What clearly interests Zizka (here at his most auteur-like) is the visual world and the results are some clever stage pictures that feel plastered inappropriately on top of an unrelated script. (We would mind more, of course, if that script were better.)

Blues indeed. As for Resurrection -- not even close.

RESURRECTION BLUES

Through Oct. 26,

Wilma Theater, Broad and Spruce sts., 215-546-7824