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REVIEW -- "The Guys" by Theatre Pops
Published: 11/12/2011 6:12 PM
Last Modified: 11/12/2011 6:12 PM

"The Guys" by former Oklahoman Anne Nelson is a difficult play by most standards.

It's a two-person show, in which the actors spend much of the time sitting in chairs and talking to each other. It's subject matter is grief, an emotion no person wants to experience and few would want to watch. And it's set in the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and brings back all the impotent, helpless rage so many Americans felt in the days and weeks and months after the World Trade Center Towers fell.

And yet, Theatre Pops production of "The Guys" is well worth seeing. You don't have much time to do so, however -- the only remaining performances are 8 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday at the Tulsa PAC.

While Theatre Pops intended to present this show in conjunction with the 10th anniversary of 9/11, it's appropriate that it is being staged the weekend of Veterans Day -- or as it was originally called, Armistice or Remembrance Day, in honor of the end of World War I, the "Great War" that unleashed the mechanized savagery that came to define the 20th century, and that created innumerable opportunities for people to deal with the kind of grief that the two people in "The Guys" must face.

For Nick (Jeremy Geiger), that grief is obvious. A captain in the NYC fire department, he lost eight men on 9/11, including his best friend who took the morning shift that Tuesday. He must deliver the eulogies at the men's various funerals, but can't find the words to say.

Through happenstance, he meets Joan (Annette Rosenheck), a former reporter turned editor who -- like a great many New Yorkers -- feels helpless in the aftermath of the attacks. "They didn't want amateurs wandering around the site," she says, adding that when it came to those whose skills were needed, "plumbers and carpenters first, they said. Intellectuals to the back of the line."

So when Nick arrives in need of a writer, Joan is all to ready to help. She guides Nick through his memories of his men, using the stories he tells to craft the sort of verbal portraits that grieving families and friends would want to hear about the loved ones they had lost.

Yet the help Joan provides Nick does not bring her the satisfaction or comfort she thought it would. It only makes her realize all the more strongly the helplessness of those left behind.

What makes Theatre Pops production effective is the even tone set by director Randy Whalen and the very real, very quiet performances by Rosenheck and Geiger. Both underplay these characters beautifully -- the emotions are nuanced and all the more wrenching because of it. The brief excursion into fantasy, when Nick and Joan dance about the room in a moment of pure joy is wonderfully handled.

One very effective touch was the opening moments, with "The Foggy Dew," performed by the Chieftains with Sinead O'Connor, being played as the stage lights slowly dimmed as this song of an ancient battle reached its mournful conclusion. Some things -- the bravery of men, the senselessness of war, the grief of the living -- never change.




Reader Comments 1 Total
StarrHrdgr (last year)
Awesome! Really gonna try to move heaven and earth to come and see this show!
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ARTS

James D. Watts Jr. has lived in Oklahoma for most his life, even though he still has people saying to him, "Don't sound like you're from around these parts." A University of Oklahoma Phi Beta Kappa graduate, Watts has received the Governor Arts Award, Harwelden Award and the National Conference of Christians and Jews Beth Macklin Award for his writing. Before coming to the Tulsa World, Watts worked for the Tulsa Tribune.

Contact him at (918) 581-8478.

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