Theatre in Review: Bronx Bombers (Circle in the Square)

	Photo: Joan Marcus

Having played Off Broadway earlier in the season, Bronx Bombers has moved to Broadway, just as genial, pleasantly sentimental, and pointless as ever. Eric Simonson's play about the New York Yankees begins promisingly in 1977 -- the height of the team's "Bronx Zoo" period -- with a frantic Yogi Berra trying to patch up the festering dispute between manager Billy Martin and heavy hitter (and major diva) Reggie Jackson, while a fed-up Thurman Munson looks on, offering acid commentary. Berra has deeply personal reasons for wanting to end the Martin-Jackson feud: For one thing, he reveres the Yankees and takes the team's troubles personally; for another, he knows that if Martin goes, he will be tapped by the team's owner, George Steinbrenner, as Martin's replacement -- a job he has already had, thank you, and his stomach lining doesn't need again.

It's a workable setup, even when the action shifts to the Berra home, where Carmen, his wife, is dealing with tons of potatoes that have been dumped on their lawn by a disgruntled farmer from North Dakota. (It's a long story, but he is reacting to Yogi's public comment that he thought potatoes only came from Idaho.) So far, so good: Simonson establishes the rancid rivalry that is eating at the team's heart and has made clear what its consequences will be for his leading character. His Act I earns an "A" for construction.

But then Simonson throws the ballgame, so to speak, by concentrating on a lengthy Act II dream sequence in which Yogi and Carmen host a kind of all-star banquet on the astral plane, attended by everyone from Babe Ruth to Derek Jeter. There are some interesting revelations -- for example, Elston Howard's quiet admission that when the Yankees went to the Stork Club, he, as a black man, wasn't invited -- and some crackling interplay between rivals Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig and Mickey Mantle and Joe DiMaggio. But the drama of Act I becomes but a memory as the author concentrates on pumping the audience's sentimental feelings for the boys of long-ago summers. Even more bewilderingly, the action then fast-forwards to the day in 2008 when the team vacates The House That Ruth Built for its new stadium, a scene that exists mostly as a staging ground for a variety of teary epiphanies.

This larger consideration of the Yankees' legacy might be worth if it Simonson had something trenchant to say, but for most of the running time of Bronx Bombers, unpleasantness is kept way, way off stage. There are brief allusions to Ruth's boozing, Mantle's addictions, and DiMaggio's unhappy marriage to Marilyn Monroe, but nothing is probed in any depth. Interestingly, Alex Rodriguez's invitation seems to have been lost in the mail because the doping scandals are never mentioned. I suppose this is inevitable in a play where some of the principals are still alive and the list of producers includes the New York Yankees and Major League Baseball, but, dramatically speaking, Simonson began his task with two strikes against him.

As before, the main pleasure of Bronx Bombers, smoothly directed by Simonson, is the way it fields a team containing some of New York's finest character men. New to the lineup is Peter Scolari, as Yogi; sadly, he isn't really an improvement on Richard Topol, who created the role. Scolari gives the action a needed jolt of energy, and he moves like a man who, having been a catcher for many years, has never quite gotten out of the crouch position. But at times, he makes Yogi seem too simple-minded, almost like the village idiot. Topol did a better job of conveying both the character's vagueness with words and his innate intelligence with people. (Once again, the dialogue is peppered with a superabundance of Yogisms: "Whatever happens, it hasn't happened yet;" "I may be nostalgic, but I don't like living in the past;" and "I didn't say everything I said."

But everyone else pretty much hits it out of the park. Francois Battiste is a fine study in contrasts as a strutting, cerebral Reggie Jackson and a self-effacing, but no less canny, Elston Howard. Chris Henry Coffey captures DiMaggio's cagey, prickly nature and his bully heart. Bill Dawes pulls off a neat double act as a grumpy Thurman Munson and as a boozy, faintly bitter Mickey Mantle. Christopher Jackson is solid as a hotel waiter drawn into the Martin-Jackson fracas and as a gentlemanly Derek Jeter. (I attended Bronx Bombers on the day that Jeter announced his retirement, and Jackson's entrance caused an audible frisson throughout the house.) Keith Nobbs turns out a pair of neatly observed comic characters as Billy Martin, who is one step away from a nervous breakdown, and as a second-generation sports reporter. Tracy Shayne is graciousness itself as Carmen Berra, who knows the players better than they know themselves. John Wernke adds an authentic touch of tragedy as Gehrig, who visibly fades as the act wears on. And C. J. Wilson lives up to his attention-getting entrance, clad in a raccoon coat and carrying a case of bathtub scotch, as that raucous boozehound Babe Ruth.

The rest of the production is equally classy. Off Broadway, Beowulf Boritt's set design was plagued by slowish scene changes, but here, thanks to a series of lifts and hoists, the action moves from a Boston hotel to the Berras' bedroom and from the banquet to Yankee Stadium quicker than a fastball. Jason Lyons' lighting casts a gorgeous blue moonlight wash on the bedroom scene and polishes the banquet scene, giving it a lovely, otherworldly touch. David C. Woolard's costumes include some show-stopping examples of expensive men's leisure wear circa 1977 and also take note of the changes in Yankee uniforms over the decades. Lindsay Jones' elaborate sound design blends the roar of the crowd with the sound of balls on bats, bursts of thunder, doorbells, and other effects, although there is still too much John Williams-style movie music underscoring the big moments.

Bronx Bombers is the third joint effort of Simonson and the producers, Fran Kirmser and Tony Ponturo, designed to lure sports fans to the theatre. (The others were Lombardi and Magic/Bird.) There probably is an audience for this calculated exercise in sports nostalgia -- for example, the two ladies of a certain age who sat a couple of rows over from me, clad in pin-striped Yankee shirts and baseball caps. But surely the world of professional sports has more real drama to offer than the rather corporate product now occupying the Circle in the Square. Bronx Bombers is like a trip to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown -- no real people, just images of idols past.--David Barbour