An unquestionable genius with a questionable past, Wernher von Braun (1912-1977) was indisputably a master of the space race.
Toiling as a wunderkind aerospace engineer for Nazi Germany, von Braun developed the V-2 rocket that launched destruction towards London. Just days before the collapse of the regime in 1945, von Braun surrendered to the United States Army, which quickly imported him to America and put him to work. During the 1950s and ‘60s, von Braun flourished as a charismatic spokesman for space exploration and as the big brain behind what would evolve into the Apollo 11 mission that landed a man on the moon in 1969.
Opening on Monday, The Winning Side is an extremely ambitious two-act play about von Braun’s life and complex character by James Wallert, a co-founder and co-artistic director of Epic Theatre Ensemble, the award-winning company that produced this premiere at the Acorn space on Theatre Row.
The launching pad for this far-flung story is based in the 1943-1945 period, when von Braun spent considerable time in Paris, which was then occupied by Nazi forces. Subsequent scenes are set in the 1950s and ‘60s to illustrate key moments in von Braun’s later life in America even as the story keeps returning to 1940s Paris. That’s when and where von Braun secretly enjoyed a red hot romance with one Margot Moreau, a tempestuous French actress and cabaret singer.
According to his author’s note in the program, Wallert says in part, “this is a work of dramatic fiction and liberties have been taken.” And how, brother, does he ever.
Margot is a fictional character invented to humanize von Braun during his dark times as a Nazi party member and an SS officer whose V-2 rocket development program brutally employed slave labor. In the course of their troubled affair, Margot hears out von Braun’s assertions that he was merely a pro forma Nazi, entirely engrossed in his scientific pursuits, and besides that, an exceptional individual who deserved “special dispensation and protection from ill-bred morons in shiny boots, the frivolities of war, and the politics of the moment.”
Another fictional figure is one Major Taggert, who amiably serves the story as an everyman stand-in for the various military officers and bureaucrats who smoothed von Braun’s way into America and then shadowed his career so that he could further the nation’s aims in the space race against Russia. Then there are more than twenty other characters, fictional and otherwise, including President Lyndon Johnson, Heinrich Himmler, and Walt Disney, all of whom are embodied by one actor.
The Winning Side is the first play that Wallert has written, and it shows. He valiantly, if vainly, attempts to study a complex, real-life individual weathering complicated, changing times and who, for all of his dubious points, contributed significantly to science and his adopted country. The vast amount of historical exposition, the development of characters, and the moral judgment that are necessary to achieve such a play as this one successfully would challenge Tom Stoppard, let alone a first-time playwright.
And Wallert tries to accomplish all of this with only four actors.
Although some of the dialogue is cumbersome and that bogus romance at the play’s core is pretty risible, Wallert at least manages to present an interesting depiction of von Braun’s American times that does not shirk from questioning the government’s decision to gloss over the man’s Nazi associations.
Ron Russell, the director, provides a highly supportive production that makes smart use of the excellent, at times even beautiful, projected images designed by Chika Shimizu that expand her functional set beyond the merely utilitarian. A literal time line projected between the play’s dozen scenes is invaluable in helping viewers to keep track of its back and forth shifts in chronology.
While von Braun’s ultra-driven character otherwise remains mostly elusive in the text, Sullivan Jones lends him some personal charm. Melissa Friedman does her darndest to make Margot’s emotional responses ring true. Godfrey L. Simmons, Jr. is personable as the military everyman and Devin E. Haqq gives everybody else in the story some distinctive voices and attitudes.
Let’s mention that in his script notes, the playwright asks that the casting should reflect the racial and ethnic diversity of the community in which the drama is presented. Accordingly, Jones, Simmons and Haqq happen to be individuals of color. After a momentary initial surprise in seeing them as the characters, my usual suspension of disbelief immediately kicked in and easily went along with their performances.
Too bad that I could not so nearly believe in the uneasy patchwork of romantic fiction and historical fact that comprises The Winning Side.
The Winning Side opened October 8, 2018, at Theatre Row and runs through November 4. Tickets and information: epictheatreensemble.org
