Dog Day Afternoon

Fifth of July

By Lanford Wilson

Directed by Shawn Hainsworth

At Leverett tonight and tomorrow

IS IT FAIR to criticize an amateur production for being amateurish? It wasn't a good sign that I began to ponder this question but a few minutes into the Leverett House Arts Society's production of Lanford Wilson's Fifth of July. At least I had a long time--the rest of the play--to come up with an answer.

And? Well, if a bunch of undergraduates decide to put on a show and fail to achieve a Hamlet or King Lear of truly tragic proportions, probably not. At least they tried. If the same people decide to produce a script as superficial and mediocre as, say, Fifth of July and charge admission, such a criticism is just.

The play is the story of Kenneth Talley Jr. (Tim Ashford), an overeducated homosexual who lost his legs in Vietnam. He lives on the Talley family farm near Lebanon, Mo., with his lover, Gardener Jed (Josh Frost). It's Independence Day, 1977 and Ken is holding a reunion of sorts with his aunt, his sister and her illegitmate child, and two old friends.

The show's tension grows from the boring circumstances surrounding Ken's departure for Indochina and his friends departure for Europe, and the fact that Ken wants to sell the farm and get out of town. Jed, though, is as attached to the farm as he is to Ken, and Aunt Sally (Ellen Bledsoe) wants to spread her husband's ashes on the property, but won't if Ken sells it.

WHATEVER. Stellar acting and inspired direction could have saved this baby, but no one seems to have any idea why they spent a semester bringing this script to life. For all the direction Hainsworth gives them, the whole cast may as well have come out of the Birdseye frozen food locker.

Julia Blum's Gwen, wife of Ken's childhood friend John, is an unlikely combination '60s burn-out/Valley Girl who giggles a lot. Ashford is cynical as Ken, but little else. The character of Jed remains to be written. His few lines merely supply the plants hanging from the Old Library's rafters with an occasional dose of carbon dioxide, which is essential to their well-being.

Only Eliza Gleason and Laurence Bouvard as Ken's sister and niece seem to realize that their jobs as actors don't end after their lines are said. Both create characters of some dimension, and Bouvard is especially good as a precious 13-year old whose dream of becoming a famous artist will never come true. Neither, though, can save a Fifth of July that's about as desirable as a fifth of castor oil.