Theatre in Review: Radiance (Labyrinth Theatre Company/Bank Street Theatre)

	Kohl Sudduth (sitting) and Aaron Roman Weiner. Photo: Monique Carboni

So this guy walks into a bar... and it turns out he bombed Hiroshima! Really, it's no joke; this is the deadly serious premise of Cusi Cram's historical drama, Radiance. The action is set in 1955 in a seedy Los Angeles bar, located just down the street from the studio where the old sob-sister reality show This is Your Life is broadcast. Into the bar, desperate for a drink, comes Robert Lewis, who, after several minutes of pointless conversational foreplay, is revealed to be the co-pilot of the Enola Gay, the aircraft that dropped Little Boy, the atom bomb that wiped out an entire Japanese city. Lewis has agreed to appear on an episode of This is Your Life honoring Rev. Kiyoshi Tanimoto, who ministered to the so-called "Hiroshima maidens," young women whose faces were horribly scarred in the blast.

Disgusted with himself and his imminent participation in this appallingly tear-jerking television spectacle, Lewis hides out in the bar, refusing to return for the broadcast until he sees a large check. Sent to retrieve him is Waxman, a member of the show's staff. "If Ralph Edwards is excited, so are 40 million Americans," says Waxman, adding, "TV should strive to educate the American public." He indicates that the ladies are to appear on the show standing behind a screen. This is a good thing, since Lewis describes one of them as having a face "like a bowl of melted ice cream."

Clearly conceived with the best of intentions, Radiance suffers from a crippling clumsiness. Cram takes forever to get to the point, frittering away valuable time on May, a barmaid, and her affair with Artie, her married boss. They are allowed to spar for an unconscionable length of time, and once Artie takes off and Lewis shows up, we have to endure several minutes of coy banter between him and May. Once Lewis' identity is revealed, it's time to cue the flashbacks, and we see Lewis fencing verbally with Laurence, a reporter; bickering with Tibbets, his pilot on the Enola Gay; and wooing Evelyn, a married Air Force nurse.

Cram wants to explore the guilt that has stained Lewis' life ever since the mushroom cloud rose over Japan, but she basically rehearses the same points you've been hearing since high school history class. (The bombing was a terrible crime! No, wait -- it ended the war, saving millions of lives!) It's a sign of Cram's inelegant construction that, during one of Lewis' flashbacks, he leaves the stage and the scene continues, filled with dialogue that he couldn't possibly remember, because he wasn't there. Adding to the noise is Waxman, who, because he is Jewish, is allowed to make an impassioned, if largely irrelevant, argument about the Holocaust. Even here, Cram can't resist a cutesy gag. "The Germans killed all my good cousins!" he shouts, adding that he can't stand any of the survivors.

This is hardly the only instance in Radiance where the dialogue strains for a screwball comedy charm. May, the barmaid, tells Artie that she's leaving him -- but first she's going for a ham sandwich. "I want to walk out of that door fortified with ham and a sense of purpose," she says. Every so often, the characters slip into Raymond Chandlerese; Lewis is described as a man "who chases trouble like trouble is a lady with high heels and a past." There are also plenty of B-movie assertions such as "The fate of the world is literally on your shoulders!"

Under the circumstances, it's not surprising that everyone in the cast seems ill at ease. Kohl Sudduth works hard, but he's not believable as a drunken ex-hero choking on his guilt. Ana Reeder has better luck as Evelyn, a straightforward case of a woman falling in love against her better judgment, as opposed to May, whose dumb-blonde chatter is beyond twee. Kelly AuCoin is okay as Artie and Laurence, but neither part is terribly interesting. Aaron Roman Weiner comes off best as the frantic Waxman and as Tibbets, a stone-cold stoic who has no use for Lewis and his conscience.

Suzanne Agins' direction can't begin to solve the play's problems, but she has seen to it that Radiance has a smashing production design. David Meyer's set is a gorgeously detailed piece of work, from the vintage radio to the signs advertising Budweiser and Hamm's Beer, to the peanut shells that accumulate on the unwashed tables. Meyer works extensively in television and film -- this is the first of his theatre designs I've seen -- and he brings a rigorous eye to his work. Working in a notoriously difficult space -- with very low lighting trims and few decent positions -- Nick Francone provides a remarkably sophisticated lighting design, creating sharply different looks as the action moves from one time frame to the next. Emily Pepper's costumes are both period-accurate -- love that blue cardigan sweater worn by Waxman -- and specific to each character. (I wonder if May would really tend bar in a green sheath evening gown, but, then again, the character is an eccentric.) Daniel Kluger's sound design includes some amusing radio commercials for Hazel Bishop cosmetics and a portion of a This is Your Life broadcast.

But it's not a good sign when the design work is more authentic than the characters and dialogue. Radiance feels like the work of a playwright who took on a provocative topic, and then struggled to find something new and meaningful to say about it.--David Barbour