Theatre in Review: The Insurgents (Labyrinth Theater Company/Bank Street Theater)

	Cassie Beck. Photo: Monique Carboni

The Insurgents begins with Cassie Beck, who plays Sally, the central character of Lucy Thurber's new play, entering, introducing herself, and, in her best giggly, I'm-just-a-girl manner, informing us that the rifle that she will be toting for most of the evening is nothing more than a stage prop and we shouldn't get nervous. Then, the vivacity draining out of her face, she assumes a deathlike demeanor and steps onto Raul Abrego's contemporary kitchen set. And John Brown, the abolitionist, begins haranguing us.

Back to Mr. Brown in a moment, along with Harriet Tubman, Nat Turner, and Timothy McVeigh. But first, that opening speech: I wasn't worried that Beck was carrying a loaded, working rifle, and I seriously doubt if anyone in the Bank Street Theater was, either. It's a gambit, a transparent trick designed to make us uneasy as we enter into what is clearly meant to be an evening of Serious Ideas. All it does, however, is make a talented actress look foolish and ill at ease.

Certainly Sally is suffering from a major case of angst, having recently returned, after years of exile, to her small New Hampshire town. Once a going concern, it is now a hollowed-out shell, thanks to the departure of the mills and the money they brought. Now most of the residents live in a cycle of addiction and abuse. If you're getting that déjà vu feeling, I'll bet you've seen more than one Lucy Thurber play.

Like many other Thurber heroines, Sally is the bright, talented one who got out but never escaped a sense of spiritual exile. Her skill at an unnamed sport -- it would be appear to be soccer -- got her a college scholarship, but, following an injury, she dropped out and spent the next few years on the road. Back home, she avoids the questions of her father, Peter, a boozer and (repentant) serial abuser of women, and Jimmy, her working stiff brother. Among other things, they would like to know why she spends all her time reading about Brown, Tubman, Turner, and McVeigh. Jimmy is especially disturbed by Sally's interest in McVeigh. Trying to explain herself, Sally says, "I absolutely don't agree with what he did -- not at all -- but it's such a thin line between hero and terrorist, especially in America, and in his mind he was at war, it was an act of war, and he was a veteran, Jimmy, a war hero, decorated and everything, and when he came home, there's no support for soldiers, when they come home, you know that, Jimmy...." And that, I'm afraid, is about as coherent as The Insurgents gets.

The four historical figures mentioned above occupy a kind of museum in Sally's head, and Thurber lets each of them sound off at length. Some of these passages exert a fascination of their own, as when Tubman is describing how being beaten in the head led to visions of a ruthless God, or when Turner, recounting the disposition of his dead body, quietly notes, "They said they used the fat from my body to make soap." There are other interesting passages, too, such as when Peter, living up to Sally's account of his racism ("This used to be the land of limitless possibility. But there are just too many people coming in and tryin' to get a piece of the pie.") or when her college coach, calmly, but firmly, tells Sally to stop telling people outrageous lies about herself. But nothing ultimately gels, because The Insurgents is so deficient in dramatic structure that it barely seems to be a play at all.

The action is supposed to chart Sally's growing fascination, mixed with repulsion, with violent action taken in the name of freedom -- and indeed there is an interesting question to be explored: Who is righteous and who is a killer? Were John Brown's violent raids justified if slaves were freed? Is Timothy McVeigh more or less culpable for his murders if he truly believes he was acting in the name of freedom? None of this gets explored, however, because Sally is so poorly conceived that all she does is occupy center stage, getting increasingly hysterical and weepier, while these historical figments of her imagination make speech after speech. Sally's personal story is so sketchily dramatized that she never emerges as anything but a mouthpiece, offering a laundry list of Thurber's concerns. This strategy backfires, badly: Trying to probe the dark realities of modern America -- the ever-yawning gulf between rich and poor, the xenophobia and racism that infect social discourse -- Thurber seems to be implying that such evils are so pernicious largely because they make Sally feel so bad.

Aside from Beck, who, for the first time in my experience, is totally at sea, the rest of the cast, under Jackson Gay's direction, shuffles between past and present with admirable skill. Dan Butler is equally persuasive as angry, muddled Peter and John Brown, driven by a savage vision of God's justice. Aaron Roman Weiner is solid as Jimmy and eerily effective as McVeigh, explaining that he intended to start a new American revolution. April Matthis is positively riveting as Sally's skeptical coach and Harriet Tubman, and Craig "muMs" Grant brings a real ferocity to Nat Turner; he also plays Sally's friend, Jonathon, the chef whose attempt at starting a farm-to-table restaurant in Detroit ends in tragedy. The role is little more than a stump speech about the decay of American cities, but he makes it reasonably compelling.

Abrego's set, featuring the kitchen set backed by a wall of aged, collapsing logs, with a tree branch growing in the window, effectively marries the play's two time frames, and Paul Whitaker's lighting efficiently reframes the playing area as needed. Jessica Ford's costumes ensure that the actors switch roles speedily and easily. The sound design, by Broken Chord, includes a ghostly chorus of voices singing the hymn "Balm in Gilead" and the rock song "Bad Company."

Having written herself into a corner, Thurber throws her hands up in the air, abruptly bringing the play to a halt and having the cast ask the audience to join them in a group sing of the Creedence Clearwater Revival song "Put a Candle in the Window." Intended as a moment of grace, it seems more like an act of desperation. Companies like Labyrinth are founded to support the work of playwrights; the company would have supported Thurber better by suggesting that The Insurgents wasn't ready to be seen by a paying audience. -- David Barbour