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An old man writes three short plays about death. Unfortunately, the old man is not Samuel Beckett, but Ray Bradbury. Yes, Ray Bradbury. Like or not -- and he probably doesn't -- Ray Bradbury has become the Norman Rockwell of science fiction, or maybe its Edgar Guest. In contrast to the dystopian oeuvres of Phil Dick, Octavia Butler, and William Gibson, Bradbury's writing is basically optimistic, basically a "have a nice day" in a genre constantly forecasting the end of days. His two-cylinder engine of wonder and whimsy has run reliably since the late 1940s, only occasionally souped up with sociopolitical additives. He is who he is -- a "science fiction" writer who disdains the Internet, doesn't use a computer, and insists he's never driven a car. And then this, from Salon: Q:
What do you think of President Bush? Don't worry, Ray -- with Dubya in power, you'll have a world more freakish than you can imagine. If it's still here. Anyway, here is Bradbury -- with a trio of new one-act plays. "The Time of Going Away" gives us new Ray Bradbury stories, all concerning people who have been told, surmise, or fear they're going to die. And local theatergoers seem to be jazzed about it; the 99-seat Court Theater was three-quarters full for a Sunday matinee. Bradbury has been a part of the L.A. theater scene since its Stone Age -- 1964, actually, when he co-founded the Pandemonium Theatre Company with director Charles Rome Smith and put up a show at the Coronet Theatre. In 1964, with American theater largely a living room, "The World of Ray Bradbury" must have seemed positively magical. Here, that world seems -- fairly or unfairly -- to have been eclipsed by more interesting realms. At 82, Bradbury's style is not likely to mutate. And he is not likely to lose his essential good-heartedness. It's just the way that good-heartedness is trotted out that's mundane. "The Swan" presents a platonic romance between a woman in her early nineties and a man in his early thirties. Helen Loomis lost her beloved in the influenza epidemic of 1918-19, a plague that killed more than 500,000 Americans. She meets William Forrester at a soda fountain (sheesh) and begins inviting him over for wine. Peggy McCay (an OBIE winner currently on "Days of Our Lives") imbues Helen with a wonderful vigor and beauty, telling tales and taking mental trips around the world with William in a way that almost makes you think of Paula Vogel. (Almost.) It's a terrific performance. Alas, Kevin Symons (fresh off his turn as the Little League-resistant father in "Rounding Third" at Laguna Playhouse) is way miscast as William Forrester, flatlining politely in a role that John Rubenstein or James McNichol would have savored 25 years ago. (It doesn't help that Symonds seems a decade too old for the part.) The play has a nice charm, but little else to say other than "some of us are born in the wrong time." "I Will Arise and Go Now" is not sci-fi at all, just a very good 15-minute play about aging and love. Two old Equity pros -- Jay Gerber and Peg Shirley -- play a couple who are weary of life and each other, but who each vaguely recall love. When the 75-year-old husband decides to walk into the chilly woods and lie down and die, the wife calls his bluff and sends him on his way. The love of a good woman (and a good side of roast beef) coax him back home. Uneventful as it sounds, the story benefits from finely drawn characters and superb actors. "Death and the Maiden" is not only a stale title, but as an added bonus also a stale story. In fact, it's remarkably like the famous late-period "Twilight Zone" episode "Nothing in the Dark", in which a young Robert Redford coaxed Gladys Cooper as a gentle ambassador of death. Old Mam (Cherry Davis, trying hard) is 90 or so; a Young Man with a sunburn and yes, an ice cream suit arrives at her door with a green elixir guaranteed to make her feel 16 for 24 hours. (Strange casting again: the "Young Man" is played by Steve Nevil, a very good actor who can't be a day under 50.) You know how it's going to end three minutes in, if not 30 seconds in; Bradbury here seems trapped by his gentle reputation. The show is ultimately like an old piece of carpet. It feels familiar, comfortable, and a bit worn and tired. One step, and you know the next. And maybe that's the key here. Consider the retro world Bradbury presents: at least two (maybe three) of these stories are set in small-town Illinois, one story features a soda fountain, another features a man wearing a Depression-era summer suit, and another features a man who knows all he knows of the world from National Geographic. By all intents and purposes, Ray Bradbury's characters are from Ronald Reagan's America -- a brilliantly marketed fiction itself. Many of Bradbury's stories are not science fiction at all, but smiling approvals of a deceitful American memory -- a candy-coated memory at that, in which everyone is white and gently bemused. No wonder Bradbury is enjoying a resurgence; a gently bemused white man runs America. He's anything but an artist; many Americans, however, would call Ray Bradbury an artist. Here's a question for anybody who creates: What kind of artist do you want to be? What truths do you aim to discover? Are you getting at a revelatory truth, or a familiar truth? That's just something to think about before you go away. "The
Time of Going Away", Copyright © 2003 The Write Word, Inc. All rights reserved. |
