Review
A More Perfect Union
13th Street Theatre
June 6, 2009
Morgan Wycks
mwycks@nyconstage.orgListing
If Supreme Court justices' law clerks are as witless as the two in A More Perfect Union, I truly fear for the future of the nation. This two-hander by Canadian Vern Thiessen is all polemics with a dash of soap opera. The two in question are a Jewess from a northern lower-middle class background who serves the most conservative judge - the "wise one", and an African American from a southern well-to-do background who works for the most liberal judge - the "enlightened one". The couple, Maddie and James, meet cute (if cute is the right word) in the stacks of the Supreme Court's libraries. Despite their moral and ethical differences, Maddie and James have an immediate attraction to each other that leads to two problems - her pregnancy and his suspected plagiarism in college. All the stereotypical slurs connected to their backgrounds get trotted out and arguments about prospective cases arise to perfectly suit the needs of the play, or I should say the needs of the playwright as he most definitely has an agenda.
Two thirds of the play is delivered with sarcasm and smugness through no fault necessarily of the actors since that is the tone in which the play is written. Spats are parceled out where lines are repeated three times as a goading effect rendering these two people as if they never made it past middle school much less law school. The last third of the play is delivered with utmost sincerity which at times is difficult to distinguish from the preceding sarcasm and to swallow.
Between the scenes the two actors dance to different styles of music, but no matter what the music they look clumsy and awkward and the director Ron Russell's point (if in fact this was his decision), other than politics being a dance itself, is elusive. As for the actors' acting, Melissa Friedman comes off the more restrained and stronger of the two while Godfrey L. Simmons, Jr. pushes too hard to endear himself to the audience. The best thing about the production is Troy Hourie's set that captures opulence, elevation and seclusion to give us the sense that we are among the tomes of the Supreme Court's libraries.
It behooves the newly appointed justice, whoever she (he) may be, to ensure whomever they hire as their primary law clerk that said clerk have brains and sophistication as well as passion - carnal or otherwise.
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