A history play that heavily distorts the facts. A social commentary about the not-so-thin line between art and propaganda that fails to make the distinction particularly interesting. A satire about the methods in which ideas are imparted that delivers the less than revelatory notion that the internet has supplanted films and literature. Those are some of the ways you could describe Spain, Jen Silverman’s undeniably ambitious new play being presented by Second Stage. Another way you could describe it is as simply a misfire.
It’s a shame, not only because the play boasts excellent production values and a first-rate cast headed by Andrew Burnap (The Inheritance, Camelot) and the always reliable Marin Ireland (Reasons to be Pretty, among many other credits), but also because the subject matter would seem inherently fascinating in a current theatrical environment dominated by solipsistic navel-gazing. A play about the creation of the 1937 pro-Spanish Republican government documentary The Spanish Earth, whose screenwriters included John Dos Passos and Ernest Hemingway, seemed rife with dramatic possibilities.
Instead, the playwright has produced a muddled comedy about the interactions among Dutch documentary filmmaker Joris Ivens (Burnap); Helen van Dongen (Ireland), his then-girlfriend who edited the film; Dos Passos (Erik Lochtefeld) and Hemingway (Danny Wolohan), whose rivalry the two cannily exploit; and Karl (Zachary James), Ivens’ opera-loving Russian KGB handler, or, as the nervous Joris describes him, “dinner companion.”
In this recounting, the ambitious Joris and Helen are recruited by the Russians to present a positive depiction of the anti-fascist Spaniards despite the fact that the pair have never even been to Spain. Cue the goofy comedy as they attempt to bring themselves up to speed by posting a list of everything they associate with the country, including paella, sangria, Zorro and Don Quixote. In a series of clandestine meetings, Karl advises the naïve Joris to simplify the issues, reducing the Spanish Civil War to “a single sentence war”— namely “How Hard It Is for a Farmer to Till the Blood-Drenched Soil.”
Meanwhile, Helen recruits the reluctant Dos Passos, whose novels she breezily describes as “linguistic experiments,” to work on the project, taking advantage of the romantic spark between them. She mainly uses him to attract the blustery, egocentric Hemingway, who needless to say comes equipped with copious amounts of booze and grandiosely announces, “Spain is a metaphor.”
It all plays like a Saturday Night Live sketch if presented on the History Channel, which wouldn’t have been so bad if the results were more entertaining. Instead, in the absence of anything resembling historical veracity we get a mixture of lowbrow comedy and dramatic pretension, with such interludes as Hemingway bellowing away in a recording booth and Karl lapsing into an aria. None of it coheres stylistically or intellectually in satisfying fashion, and a coda set in the present day proves embarrassingly obvious in its message.
Director Tyne Rafaeli delivers a visually impressive staging, aided greatly by Jen Schriever’s shadowy lighting design, that only partially compensates for the play’s ineffectiveness. The performers seem adrift in the morass of a script, with Burnap failing to make much of an impression and Ireland uncharacteristically over-the-top. And while Lochtefeld maintains his dignity as Dos Passos, Wolohan leans so heavily toward caricature as Hemingway he might as well be appearing on Comedy Central’s Drunk History. As the mysterious KGB agent, James displays a powerful singing voice but mainly relies on his hulking physical presence.
There’s nothing wrong with a playwright playing fast and loose with historical facts, but the approach would be more effective if the facts were better known. Spain disappointingly fails as both history lesson and reimagining. It’s the kind of play about real-life events that doesn’t make you want to learn more.
Spain opened November 30, 2023, at Second Stage and runs through December 17. Tickets and information: 2st.com
