Theatre in Review: Almost Home (The Directors Company/Theatre Row)

There's not much to be said about Almost Home, an amateurish effort that The Directors Company has done no favors by giving a full mounting with a name cast. The setup of Walter Anderson's drama is a little bit like Frank D. Gilroy's far superior The Subject Was Roses, with a young serviceman coming home to confront his troubled working-class parents in their Bronx apartment. It is 1965, and Johnny Barnett, a Marine, has returned from his tour of duty in Vietnam. He has two choices: He can reup and become a drill sergeant, or enroll in college in California. He's on a 72-hour leave and must decide before his visit is over.

A third possibility arrives with Nick Pappas, the police captain who, years earlier, had pushed Johnny into a boxing career that never really took off. He wants Johnny to enroll in the police academy, where, he assures the young man, he will end up in the department of internal affairs in no time at all. As Nick puts it, "[John] Lindsay and his pansies are coming in," and he'll need a friend in advance of any corruption inquiries. Johnny isn't really interested until Nick starts to apply some pressure: Harry, Johnny's father, a drunk who plays the ponies, is in debt to Nick to the tune of $2,000; he will forgive the money if Johnny plays along.

Nick has a more sinister hold over Harry, but that's only one more detail in a seriously overloaded plot that takes in alcoholism, domestic abuse, mercy killing, wartime atrocities, black marketeering, numbers running, and blackmail, not to mention all sorts of illegal activities down at the local precinct house. The revelations come thick and fast; before there's time to take in one development, five more are headed your way. Then, at the 80-minute mark, the action comes screeching to a halt, leaving so many plot points dangling that you easily might think it was intermission. At the performance I attended, the audience clearly didn't know the show was over, resulting in one of those curtain calls that begin with awkwardly delayed applause.

Michael Parva's staging is competent enough, but there's nothing to be done about the too-compressed action and superabundance of twists. The fast-rising Jonny Orsini plays Johnny with jolts of intensity that keep us nicely on edge, but his ultra-clean-cut persona is at odds with the details of the character's background, which includes some low-level criminal behavior and the tendency to beat his opponents to a pulp. As his mother, Karen Ziemba does her best Alice Kramden imitation, but her downtrodden housewife has a little too much musical theatre sparkle to be believed. Brenda Pressley gives plenty of snap, crackle, and pop to the role of the schoolteacher next door, who doesn't take crap from young men or corrupt cops. The script never really explains why Nick is so interested in Johnny, but James McCaffrey does what he can with the role; he has a nice way of nervously drumming his fingers on the table just before putting the screws to an antagonist. Joe Lisi does his best with the seriously underwritten role of Harry.

Harry Feiner's well-worn apartment setting is an excellent piece of naturalism-- - I loved the vintage stove-- - with an interrogation room at stage right and Nick's office at stage left. Graham Kindred's lighting is generally solid, although I could do without the too-blatant cue that sets up Harry's big monologue about his horrifying experiences in World War II. Michael McDonald's costumes are nicely in period and suitable to each character. Quentin Chiappetta's sound design includes a playlist of pop tunes ranging from Perry Como to the Beatles, along with various effects including ambient traffic noises.

Anderson has had a distinguished career in magazine publishing, has been a tireless advocate for literacy, and has earned many awards. (According to Wikipedia, "He was named by Marjabelle Young Stewart to the list of the ten most well-mannered Americans.") Such credits are impressive, but playwriting is a very specific skill, one that he does not yet possess. The Directors Company says its mission is to "develop and produce groundbreaking new plays and musicals." With Almost Home, they have glaringly failed to take care of the development part.---David Barbour