With thoughtful, moving plays such as The Language of Trees and If I Forget, and with the libretto for Dear Evan Hansen, Steven Levenson has shown us both the necessity and the limits of good intentions, as well as the pickles they can get us into. So it was probably only a matter of time before the young playwright turned his attention to ‘60s radicals, the subject of his absorbing, funny, and problematic Days Of Rage, now in its world premiere.
[Read Steven Suskin’s ★★ review here.]
Conceived nearly a decade ago, before any number of developments that have led to some to believe our polarized country is again on the brink of revolution, Rage unfolds in October 1969—just two months after Woodstock, as the stage directions note, and six and a half years before the Vietnam War finally sputtered to an end. The setting is a “ramshackle old house in upstate New York”—a two-story model of neglect and, on the first floor, disarray, designed by Louisa Thompson so that you can practically smell the spoiled milk in the fridge. In it, a trio of former students struggle to sustain and build what remains of their “collective” after a pair of comrades split with their car.
There is 20-year-old Jenny, who left her college studies and a supportive middle-class family to run off with her high school beau, Spence, 21, and Quinn, 20, the angry young woman who resents Jenny’s privilege and has been sleeping with Spence—monogamy being, as Quinn explains at one point, “one of the main forms of oppression that capitalism uses against people.”
Their conviction in this principle, and others, is tested when two outsiders manage to infiltrate the group, through different means. Hal, an African-American just a couple of years older than the others, meets Jenny as she’s handing out protest leaflets outside Sears, where Hal’s working for the man to support himself during a break in his studies. It soon emerges he has a brother fighting in Vietnam—an enlisted man, not a draftee. In a scene that reflects as well as any other Rage’s tendency to mine resonant (if sometimes obvious) contradictions but underline them to a point verging on pedantry, Hal gets lectured and chastised by the white radicals who spend their days railing against the racism inherent in our country’s imperialist policies.
The other interloper is Peggy, a 17-year-old gamine who turns up coiffed and dressed like a Peyton Place-era Mia Farrow, begging to join the collective. Spence is suspicious of her motives and unsure of her commitment, but she’s packing two thousand dollars that the group sorely needs, with various bills due and an imminent trip to Chicago, where all are hopeful that a massive, game-changing protest is about to take place.
As Peggy tries to ingratiate herself to the others, she reveals an aptitude for seizing on their vulnerabilities, and her wheedling turns to dissembling as a possible crisis develops, with members of the collective worried that they’re being followed by government operatives. Tavi Gevinson is ideally cast as the seemingly devious but also somewhat clueless naif, wielding her coiled energy and distinctly nasal, dusky voice to both irritating and hilarious effect.
Under Trip Cullman’s brisk direction—with period music blasting between the shortish scenes, while cast members run about frantically before settling back into character—the other actors are similarly well-matched. Mike Faist, who was excellent as an isolated and deeply troubled teenager in Evan Hansen, is equally facile as the Engels-quoting Spence, who makes far more adroit use of his sensitivity, especially with the opposite sex. Odessa Young’s nicely tart take on Quinn finds the humor in this sullen, essentially joyless character.
As Jenny and Hal, respectively, Lauren Patten and J. Alphonse Nicholson get to provide the soul of this invigorating but somewhat contrived story, and both deliver touching performances that evince the characters’ considerable conflicts, which in Hal’s case extend well beyond race and politics.
Toward the end, Levenson has two characters briefly step out of the moment to address what will become of them and their cohort in the future; it’s an unnecessary touch, and adds to the tinges of didacticism that mar the play. Still, in presenting his would-be revolutionaries smartly, with a full heart and on their own terms, rather than as symbols or forebears of future challenges, the playwright has given us something that feels fresh and vital—without sidestepping the sad, unavoidable parallels between Days of Rage’s divisive times and our own.
Days of Rage opened October 30, 2018, at Second Stage and runs through November 25. Tickets and information: 2st.com
