Comedic Kindling Brightens ‘Camping’
“Camping With Henry and Tom” Saturday, Sept. 28, Interplayers Ensemble
Who ever knew that Henry Ford, Thomas Edison and President Warren G. Harding were, in reality, The Sunshine Boys?
The three main characters in this new and funny Mark St. Germain play come across more like an elderly vaudeville comedy act than as the most influential figures of the early 20th century.
This is both the best thing about this play, and the worst. Best, because it makes the play consistently funny, sometimes uproariously so. Worst, because it tends to trivialize these men and reduce their camping-trip encounter to a series of one-liners.
The entire play, directed by Joan Welch, takes place in a secluded patch of woods in Maryland. President Harding has been invited on Ford’s and Edison’s annual camping trip. While out for a drive, Ford hits a deer and damages his Model T. The three men spend the night alone around a campfire until the Secret Service finds them.
In St. Germain’s hands, this event is the opportunity to indulge in a lot of shtick involving the deer (it returns to life at an inopportune moment) and the campfire (they barely get one started).
But he also uses the event for more serious purposes. It soon turns out that Ford invited Harding along to bully him into selling him the Mussel Shoals hydroelectric project. Not just bully him, but blackmail him with information about Harding’s alleged mistress uncovered by Ford’s “sociology boys.”
Staying somewhat outside this fray is Edison, portrayed as a skeptic, cynic and realist. Edison is the most successful and sympathetic character in this play, partly because he doesn’t descend into the gutter politics, but also because he is so skillfully and subtly portrayed by John Oswald.
Oswald plays him as a tired old man, but he’s not tired of life so much as tired of the nonsense and meanness of life. Thus, he has no sympathy for the anti-Semitic nastiness he hears from Ford or for any of Ford’s ambitions to kingship. Oswald’s comic timing and movement are exceptional, but more importantly he is a calming element in a play that threatens at times to be overhysterical.
Michael Weaver plays Harding as, essentially, a weak buffoon. This is probably defensible, considering Harding’s record, but I found it hard to believe a man like this could ever become president. He comes across as just plain silly, despite St. Germain’s attempts to add some depth.
David Heath plays Ford with a fine zealous intensity. Both he and Weaver, however, sometimes confuse intensity with shouting, which can grate on an audience after awhile.
These small irritations wouldn’t have bothered me as much if the script itself had a discernible point. I think St. Germain may be trying to make some kind of parallel to our modern political situation, but it’s never clear exactly what that is. Is Harding, a weak man in his personal life, comparable to Clinton? Is Ford, a rich eccentric with imperial ambitions, like Perot?
These are interesting questions to contemplate, but St. Germain gives us too little information for anything except idle speculation.
, DataTimes MEMO: ‘Camping With Henry and Tom” continues Tuesdays through Saturdays through Oct. 12. Friday and Saturday shows are at 8 p.m.; Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday shows are at 7:30 p.m. Matinees, at 2 p.m., are scheduled for this Wednesday and Saturday. Call 455-PLAY for ticket reservations.