Review of the play by Evan Henerson, San Gabriel Tribune
All about Baseball and American values
Anyone who flipped on a car radio following the conclusion of the play "Take Me Out" Thursday night would have heard the Dodgers putting the finishing touches on a badly needed 9-6 victory over the San Diego Padres. A few more victories and San Francisco Giants defeats, and our Dogs will be headed to the postseason for the first time in far too long.And if there's anybody who gets what finally reaching the playoffs would mean to any long-suffering baseball fan, that person would be "Take Me Out" playwright Richard Greenberg, a quite intellectual New Yorker whose love of the sport is less than 5 years old.
"Take Me Out," receiving a bang-up and hugely satisfying West Coast premiere at the Brentwood Theatre, purports to be a story of a baseball player and a baseball team. Hypothesizing about the fallout over a star athlete coming out of the closet, "Take Me Out" spins off to tackle values, isolation, opportunity and racism. And - wonderfully! - baseball.
There's a character, inspired by the playwright himself, named Mason Marzac. An accountant with excellent business sense and no life, Marzac takes on the portfolio of multimillionaire center fielder Darren Lemming and proceeds to fall cuckoo in love with the game of baseball. "Democracy is lovely," Marzac concludes halfway through a marvelous monologue, "but baseball is more mature." When skinny and pale Jeffrey Hutchinson's Mason gets going, he takes on a kind of glow. Indeed, the field itself (designed by Eric Larson with brick, graying skies and a foul pole for extra authenticity) has a kind of majesty as well.
Now, most accountants probably don't wax as eloquent about our national pastime as Mason Marzac any more often than Major League first basemen go around spinning sentences like, "The terrible thing that has happened and that was precipitated by you is of an indeterminate nature." The eloquence of Greenberg's dialogue will likely take some getting used to. As will, I suspect, the amount of full-frontal male nudity that "Take Me Out" contains. Gratuitous? No. But it's there.
Stay with it. Randall Arney's production offers so very many rewards.
"Take Me Out" is kind of a tragedy. It begins with Darren Lemming (played with intellect over swagger by Terrell Tilford) making what he considers a matter-of-fact announcement to the press about his sexual preferences. He considers the matter no big deal because Darren Lemming, the brightest light on a championship team, is untouchable. If you accept, as Greenberg does, that God is in baseball, then Darren - because of his abilities - is a kind of a god in human form. And gods can't be brought down, right?
Wrong. There is fallout, gradual rather than immediate, over Darren's admission. The star athlete's isolation, even pre-outing, is the norm, not the exception. On the New York Empires, which the playwright envisions as a microcosm of America, there are intellectuals, family men, immigrants and people who speak no English. Baseball may be pure, but it can't unite so many differing elements. At least not once the game is over.
Also on the Empires is an angry, ignorant caveman-like relief pitcher named Shane Mungitt (Jeremy Sisto) who spews racist and homophobic venom and who is as hated as Darren is loved. He's part of America, too. There is no shortage of excellent performances among Arney's 11-person ensemble. Sisto's is especially brave and chilling. That you want to pity this dangerous clown up until the point that you see pity isn't possible is a testament to Sisto's work.
The narrative pingpongs between Marzac and Kippy Sunderstrom (Jeffrey Nordling), the Empires' cerebral first baseman. By season's end, the team has experienced victory, tragedy, intense publicity and, in some cases, self-realization. There will be plenty to ponder or discuss on the ride home.
After, that is, you've checked the Dodgers score.