Appomattox

The Guthrie marks its 50th season this year and, to celebrate, is beginning the season with works by British playwright Christopher Hampton; all three Guthrie stages will host works by Hampton during the month of October. I've never seen any of Hampton's plays, so that's a bit of an unknown, but I have seen several movies for which he's written the screenplay: Atonement, The Quiet American, Carrington, and Dangerous Liasons are just a few of his titles.

Appomattox, Christopher Hampton
Guthrie Theater, Minneapolis, MN
(Preview Performance)

Synopsis, courtesy of The Guthrie Theater:
"April 1865. Ulysses S. Grant, general of the armies of the United States, meets Robert E. Lee, general of the confederate forces, at Appomattox Court House to sign the treaty that will end the bloodiest war in U.S. history. The days preceding the signing are depicted through the eyes of President Abraham Lincoln and his wife Mary, of Julia Grant and Mary Custis Lee and of others who were on the front lines of history. Will this be the healing act needed to bring a divided country back? February 1965.St. James Baptist Church deacon Jimmie Lee Jackson is shot by an Alabama state trooper during a peaceful protest for civil rights. The incident provides the spark for Martin Luther King, Jr.'s protest march from Selma to Montgomery and for Lyndon Johnson to galvanize his political influence to push the Voting Rights Act through Congress. Separated by 100 years and 600 miles, the play's events are linked by issues at the core of the American soul: freedom, rights, race and a stubborn belief in and hope for a brighter future."

Have you ever been to EPCOT? In the American pavillion of the World Showcase you'll find "The American Adventure", an "awe-inspiring 30-minute theatrical show uses 35 lifelike Audio-Animatronic figures and filmed sequences in dramatic recreations of extraordinary people and events in American history." When I was younger, I loved this show. The last time I went, I found it an almost unbearably schlocky half hour of overdone propaganda. Mainly the animatronics were a little too much for me. Major historical figures rising out of a "stage" at the front of the theatre and then jerkily interacting before the next vignette took over seemed a little ridiculous, and I had a hard time summoning the magic I'd found in it earlier.

This is sort of how I felt about Act I of Appomattox. The platforms sliding on and off with figures like Abraham Lincoln frozen on them, looking through a scrim at eerily-lit figures of John Wilkes Booth and Lee Harvey Oswald... it was just too much.

To be fair, I have never been a fan of the history play as a genre. I don't like Shakespeare's, and I don't really like anyone else's. Sitting through the musical 1776 was a long evening. Appomattox has a similar vibe, certainly through Act I.

Act II was better, largely because I was less familiar with the events being depicted. The dialogue, particularly that written for LBJ and J Edgar Hoover (or LBJ about J Edgar Hoover), was funny and unexpected -- I knew President Johnson had a colorful way with language, but the demonstrations of it were astounding.

The thing was, even with Act II, I felt like I was seeing the "B-sides" of history. The act, like Act I, began with a prelude where we saw a man who was about to assassinate a president and he got to have his say (go ahead and say it: Sondheim already wrote Assassins. I agree.). But Kennedy was already dead when the second act began and, although his assassination was clearly a pivotal moment, it was barely mentioned again. Perhaps this was foreshadowing the later assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., another important character in the act? Nope. We never got to that. What we saw were several intervening moments that I didn't know about--but without the big historical payoffs.

During the intermission I made friends with the others in my row. This wouldn't be unusual except that I spent ten minutes in the lobby talking to my tech director who was working as an usher tonight. I came back in to my seat when the bells summoned us, and then we waited, house lights up, another ten+ minutes for the second act to start. I do like to go to preview performances, partially so I can recommend a show in a timely manner, but also because I like to see mistakes by professionals. Not only do their mistakes make me feel better about mine, but I like to note how the actors handle the unexpected so I can bring the stories back to my students. A delay during intermission, however, doesn't afford me the opportunity to observe. I could hear lots of unexplained noises coming from behind the scrim on stage and could see people with walkie talkies circling at the back of the house, but there wasn't anything else to observe, really. In chatting with the others in my row during this surprisingly long break, one woman speculated whether this was on purpose. I assured her that it wasn't. Her answer made me laugh out loud: "Oh. I thought that since there were a hundred years between Act I and Act II, they maybe wanted us to really feel that distance. Get a little older, ourselves." I'm sure that wasn't it, but maybe the Guthrie can put that into the promotional materials for the show.

With a running time of nearly three hours (before any lengthened intermissions), make sure you come properly caffeinated and with your thinking caps on. It's a history lesson, not a passive spectator event.

Next scheduled show: Tales from Hollywood, Christopher Hampton, at the Guthrie 16 October.

Sources:
"Appomattox." The Guthrie Theater. Web. 4 Oct 2012.

"The American Adventure." Walt Disney World. Web. 4 Oct 2012.