There's something terribly romantic about the idea of the "lost work." Specifically, there have been quite a number of works of fiction concerning a "lost play" by Shakespeare that we'd all love to find. The greatest "lost plays" were, of course, the masterpieces written by O'Neill after he retreated from the spotlight after The Iceman Cometh. I'm sure there are readers everywhere who can hardly wait until J.D. Salinger dies to see if he's really been writing novels all this time. And, sure, there are other lost works that keep popping up. Ernest Hemingway comes out with a new novel all the time, and I think Tupac Shakur has done more dead than anyone alive, but most lost works are lost because, well, they should be lost.
What gets less play are those works that aren't lost but might as well be. Hundreds of motion pictures produced between 1923 and 1929 belong in this category, unseen in studio archives because their owners don't want to spend the money to distribute them. Gosh knows how many novels are out of print. And then there are those plays that have gathered dust for decades, some of which I've heard of because my parents acted in them in the 1960's, such long-forgotten works as Ready When You Are, C.B., Dinny and the Witches and others.
Surprisingly, Gore Vidal's Weekend belongs in this category, and what company better to make a dramaturgical archaelogical dig than TimeLine? The play had what seems to be its last professional run in an all-too-short Broadway engagement in 1968 until TimeLine's excavation. Naturally, one's first inclination when one hears of a play that gathered dust for forty years is to think, "Well, it must be terrible, shouldn't it?" But you know what? It's not! It's not terrible at all! In fact, I daresay it's pretty good.
It's the story of Senatory MacGruder, Republican senator in the summer of 1968, hopeful nominee for the party who has decided to run a campaign centered on a withdrawal from Vietnam, and what happens when his son Beany comes home with his black fiance Louise. Of course, havoc ensues due to the threat that this fiendish miscenegation poses for his presidential campaign.
Vidal's play is nothing particularly spectacular and some of the moments that are supposed to shock are slightly dated. I was frankly amazed that anyone in the audience gasped when it was revealed that the Senator had an adulterous relationship with his private secretary. But those moments are far outweighed by some prescient references to breaking in to Democratic National Committee and the comic value of Ronald Reagan. You'd be hard pressed at times to believe this play was written in 1968, but it was!
One reason, I suspect, that the play failed in '68 was the fact that it is indeed quite remiscient of Vidal's The Best Man from eight years earlier, but in that decade, eight years might as well be a lifetime. After all, Hair followed The Music Man by only eight years too. Audiences of the time may have written off the play as "old fashioned." And Vidal's portrayal of the young Beany and Louise doesn't ring true all the time, although that generation gap isn't so glaring four decades later.
So while this play isn't entirely a found masterpiece, it's still a relevant play, and the performances across the board were just excellent, especially the always-reliable Terry Hamilton as Senator MacGruder. It's the finest work I've seen from him, creating a sympathetic politican, a feat that can only be called Herculean and he succeeds smashingly well. Keith Pitts' set perfectly captures snobbish Washington. And of course, the lobby fucking rocks.
Weekend is playing at TimeLine Theatre through October 12th. Reservations can be made at (773) 281-8463 x24.
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