| . | 03/09/2009
Heroes
By: Eugene Paul
Jonathan Hogan , Ron Holgate and John Cullum star as WWI vets living out their years in an old soldiers' home in 'Heroes.'
I couldn’t wait to see Heroes, Gerald Sibleyras’ play had been translated from the French by the inestimable Tom Stoppard, a huge favorite. Moreover, I’d been a Francophile most of my life, flew many missions over France, felt a particular affinity for the play’s setting, a veterans’ retirement home in France. The year of the setting of the play, 1959 I remembered well for several other reasons. So I was instantly taken with set designer Beowulf Borwitt’s simple, somehow Gallic corner of a walled garden, did not belabor the obviously French park chairs you find only in Paris. All well and good. That too blue sky? Well, why not? Let’s call it French blue. And then we meet Henri. He’s played by John Cullum, one of our established American stars. I realize I’m thinking he’s way too American. Meaning – what? But then I realize I am taking his costume apart. Linen jacket? All right, summer. Also I am studying Ron Holgate’s outfit. Holgate plays Gustave, the blowhard concealing—what? And then I find I am scrutinizing the careful clothing worn by Philippe (Jopathan Hogan). And I sez to me: what am I doing? I am not with it. I don’t want to think that their vests are wrong, that months go by and they never change their clothes. That they are not French. I want to be involved. In—what?
Their lives? The playwright says Henri has been here for twenty-five years, which thus establishes that these gentlemen are veterans of World War I. Henri has a bum leg, walks with a cane. Does that merit him being in a veterans’ home? For all those years? Don’t think like that, pay attention. Let’s see, Philippe has been here for ten years; Philippe has a piece of shrapnel in his head that plagues him every now and then and Philippe zonks out, always recovering with the same cry, something about the captain take him from the rear. Valid candidate for our establishment. Why that odd bit about the captain? And Gustave, ,blustering, self-important, domineering Gustave? Only here six months? Hmm, he’s not all he seems to be, now, is he… Why? And where’s he from? Good, I’m involved. So that when the minutiae of their daily lives together opens up their faults, their foibles, their fantasies, their fears, the play has taken hold. Because playwright Sibleyras has created characters that seem to resonate with us in spite of Stoppard’s translation which yields nothing to American ears or usages.
Yet, we respond to their common plight, for plight it is: a longing to get out, get away, yet a fear of the same . Gustave rages to flee these walls and gates of their refuge; he wants to run to Indo-China, or even just to the top of the distant hill covered in poplars he sees beyond the wall, except that his phobias won’t permit him. Philippe’s fainting spells are more frequent; he feels his impending end. And Henri? Tactful or blunt, caring or callous, he is logical, clear headed and—mysterious. Why is he here? Yet he, too, wants to flee from this place. John Cullum grows on you. You watch him more and more intently. Yet, Jonathan Hogan, as Philippe, is most reachable, most vivid. Him you can understand. And Ron Holgate, Gustave? Most mannered, most performing? Will we ever know? All are hewing to the confines of director Carl Forsman’s plan which dictates that primarily, we are in a theater watching a play, and secondarily, that these are the words the playwright has laid out to tell his story. If they don’t always link up, we have the rubric of everybody in a veterans’ home being a little off, or a lot, just by being there. But as real as their various failings are, their hunger for flight is real-er, and their common bond. And, maybe, ours as well? Is that what playwright Sibleyras has been telling us? Ours, is ours as frustrated as theirs? Not if we have been lifted out of ourselves, as we have sat and admired occasionally and nit picked too often. We are bemused by how much power setting and costume have over our vision of the vision of the playwright, despite acceptable, readable performances. Beyond what little, obvious story there is, the moments between the characters and among them seem to bind fraternity among them even more strongly than their yearning for flight. I understand at last.
Clurman Theater, Theater Row. 410 West 42nd Street. Tickets: http://www.keencompany.org or 212-216-0963 for dates, prices.
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