Theatre in Review: I Forgive You, Ronald Reagan (Theatre Row)

	Danielle Faitelson, Patricia Richardson and PJ Benjamin. Photo: Carol Rosegg

And what does Ronald Reagan need forgiveness for? You may have your own list of grievances, but Ray, the protagonist of John S. Anastasi's play, blames him for the loss of his career. Ray was an air traffic controller in 1981, when Reagan stared down PATCO, the controller's union, in a power struggle that set the tone for the rest of his presidency.

(A note for the young'uns: PATCO was contractually barred from striking; when the controllers struck anyway, citing grueling work conditions that arguably put travelers at risk, Reagan fired them. It was the beginning of the end of union power in this country and also the first step on the road to the chaos that is airline travel today. Many conservatives consider it one of the late president's signature achievements; one of I Forgive You, Ronald Reagan's many video sequences features New Jersey's Governor Chris Christie, in a speech at the inauguration of the Reagan library, positively salivating over the prospect of a thousand or more unemployed workers.)

But I digress. Ray, convinced that Reagan will back down, goes into a tailspin when he loses his job, doing time in a mental institution. He has cobbled together a sort-of life 23 years later as a small-time contractor. (He notes, sardonically, that he specializes in "toilet and vanity construction.") It's hardly a tension-free existence; Ray's bitterness has iced out Buzz, his former colleague and best friend, who took Reagan's offer and went back to work. Buzz, a widower, lives next door and carries a torch for Tess, Ray's wife; their (platonic) friendship drives Ray nuts. For her part, Tess is fed up with the way Ray indulges their daughter, Jane, an aspiring actress with an allergy to work.

This troubled, if relatively stable, situation -- a kind of domestic Cold War -- falls apart when Reagan dies, an event that threatens Ray's fragile sanity. Adding to the turbulence, Jane announces that she has fallen in love with Buzz's son, who is, of all things, a powerful labor lawyer. This development only adds more shouting matches to a play that is already grievously oversupplied with them.

That's because I Forgive You, Ronald Reagan is a dreary, one-note melodrama constructed almost entirely of shrill family arguments. We're invited to see Ray as a tragic Willy Loman figure whose agony is rooted in his over-identification with his work; as Tess puts it, "It's not blood that flows in his veins, it's jet fuel." He's also a Vietnam vet with a Medal of Honor, another detail that positions him as a true believer in the American Dream, sadly left behind while the rest of the world chases after a bigger payday. But as written by Anastasi and played by P.J. Benjamin, Ray is alternately bellicose and deluded, a big raging baby who blames the world for his problems even as he engages in acts of self-sabotage.

A smart writer like Arthur Miller shows us bits of Willy's (admittedly idealized) past, letting us see the happiness that once held his family together. Anastasi gives us nothing to hold onto; a few minutes with rageaholic Ray, who has nothing but scorn for the people who love him, is enough to last a lifetime. (The one exception to his generalized fury is his relationship with Jane, but his belief in her nonexistent career is just another illusion.) And then there are Ray's furtive trips to the attic, where he has set up an ersatz controller's console, to fantasize that he is still on the job. "Do you have any idea how hard you make it to love you?" asks Tess at one point. Well yes, I do, actually.

Anastasi's approach is strictly hammer-and-tongs; the characters talk only about the issues at hand, and they speak their minds at all times. There isn't a hint of subtext. As a result, I Forgive You, Ronald Reagan often plays like a television sitcom from which the laughs have been mysteriously siphoned off, leaving nothing but long stretches of exposition. The big scenes -- Tess telling Buzz he is dead to her, Tess rewarding an insolent question from Jane with a slap in the face, Ray's anguished confession that he prayed for a plane crash -- are strictly old-school soap opera. In one especially glaring contrivance, we are asked to believe that Jane, who is 26, has never heard a word about any of this, not even from Buzz's son, whom she has been dating for several months. Really, what do these people have to talk about?

Charles Abbott, the director, clearly opted for an all-stops-out approach, which, given the script, may have been his only choice. In addition to Benjamin, the rest of the thoroughly solid cast -- Patricia Richardson as Jane, Robert Emmet Lunney as Buzz, and Danielle Faitelson as Tess -- pour on the intensity, an approach that quickly proves wearying. Oddly enough, we never meet David, Buzz's son and Jane's love interest; it's too bad, because they could use someone skilled in arbitration.

Anyway, the production is fairly slick, led by Craig Napoliello's nicely detailed living-room-and-kitchen set, which is lit with subtlety and taste by Jeff Kroger. David Bengali's projections consist of a series of excerpts from contemporary news reports, featuring the likes of Ted Koppel and Dan Rather, plus that more recent excerpt from Christie's speech; used to cover the scene changes, they add a level of texture and detail that is sorely missing from the script. Jason Crystal's canny sound design includes the use of pop tunes to indicate time frames --"Jesse's Girl" for 1981 and numbers by Five for Fighting and Maroon 5 for 2004 -- and the interesting use of Ray Bolger, singing "Once Upon a Time" (from the All-American cast album), as Ray and Tess' personal cue for romance, plus the usual effects. Kristy Leigh Hall's costumes feel true to the characters.

But they aren't characters that you're likely to want to spend two hours with. Using the parlance that Ray would understand, this vehicle is stuck on the runway, permanently.--David Barbour