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The Man Who Had All The Luck, Waterboarding Blues, and Smoking Gun Trio

The Man Who Had All The Luck

The Man Who Had All the Luck was Arthur Miller’s first Broadway play, and it was a flop. Written in 1940 and produced in 1944, the play tells the story of David Beeves, an automobile mechanic who seems to be able to overcome even the most impossible obstacles through apparently supernatural good fortune—even as those around him fail. Critics found the play to be contrived, didactic, and youthful…and it was. But it also contained all the seeds for Miller’s great later work, from Death of a Salesman to All My Sons.

Ove the past decade, successful revivals of The Man Who Had All the Luck have served to remind us of the importance of giving thoughtful consideration to new plays by young writers. If we are too dismissive, we could pass over the next Arthur Miller. Knowing what we know now, it seems a much better play than it might have in 1944.

With that in mind, The Man Who Had All the Luck becomes an obvious choice for Buffalo’s Road Less Traveled theater, which specializes in new plays by local writers. Their production, directed by Scott Behrend, will open on April 17 at the Market Arcade Film & Arts Center, 639 Main Street, with a cast featuring Bob Grabowski, Gerry Maher, Matt Witten, Cassie Gorniewicz, Greg Natale, Peter Jaskowiak, Jim Maloy, Steve Jakiel, Steve Copps, and Jeanne Cairns.

Viewed in the context of his later work, we can appreciate The Man Who Had All the Luck more fully. Its central character begins to fear that disaster is around the corner. Eventually, however, he sees that his optimistic outlook has invited success. We see, as well, that those who fail often sow the seeds of their fates.

Waterboarding Blues

Subversive Theatre's Waterboarding Blues.

On the topic of new plays by local writers, this week offers a treasure trove. With Waterboarding Blues, now playing at the Subversive Theatre Collective, Kurt Schneiderman has written an engaging and thought-provoking script, which he has directed to very successful effect.

The plot follows a marine captain serving in Iraq who is assigned to interrogate insurgents. His methods, including the practice of waterboarding, are put under scrutiny when a noted imam dies during questioning.

What follows is kind of like The Twilight Zone meets A Christmas Carol. Captain Sterling, played by Gordon Tashjian, is visited by three successive insurgents, each apparently from pages of history: a famed member of the Polish resistance to Hitler, who disappeared during the 1940s; a man who speaks ancient Aramaic and comes to plead for the life of Jesus; and one of the Sterling’s own ancestors, who has served under General George Washington. In a switch of perspective, each of these visitors sees Sterling as the terrorist.

Schneiderman’s script fluctuates between locations, including scenes of the captain’s questioning by a congressional committee, scenes in which he questions insurgents, scenes in which he corresponds with his daughter back in the United States, and scenes where he relaxes with a lieutenant at a bar. In addition to Tashjian, the cast includes Dennis Keefe, James Wild, Robert “Hodie” Hodas, Jessica Stuber, John Vines, and Travis Hedland. In many instances, this stalwart crew is called upon to play multiple roles, which they do with impressive facility. I found newcomers Stuber and Hedland to be especially impressive in contrasting roles that allow them to showcase notable range and skill.

Smoking Gun Trio

Alaina Renee Miller

This weekend marks the final opportunity to see two single-act plays and a set of three monologues presented by American Repertory Theatre at TheatreLoft. These include Mark Humphrey’s Mechanics (another homage to the Twilight Zone) in which two young men hassle a celebrated magician for insight and inspiration; three monologues by Cindy Darling, performed by Alaina Renee Miller; and Angel in Black, a play by Matthew LaChiusa about a commercially successful television writer whose artistically insightful but obnoxious girlfriend interferes with his process. Like the Buffalo Quickies at Alleyway, this evening is most interesting for the way it toys with ideas that might subsequently lead to more substantial works.

ART has assembled some fine talent. Hugh Davis, Brian Bernys, and Jacob Albarella perform Mechanics, bring great humor tinged with menace to the piece. Alaina Renee Miller gamely assays Ms. Darling’s three monologues about a woman unlucky in love. In the third play, Marie Costa, who memorably played the lead in Tennessee Williams The Rose Tattoo on the same stage last season is vivid and memorable as the Euro-trash girl friend with a sociopathic sense of the aesthetic. Andrew Michalski and Drew Derek play opposite her hurricane of a performance with marvelous understatement and overstated insouciance—right up until they lose it.

Each of the plays has an element of pat closure, common in short works. Thinking of clever situations would seem to be the easy part; writing a compelling path through conflict to closure is more of a challenge. These plays provide interesting insights into modern life, captured in imperfect packages, but are certainly worth a gander.