We see very few plays from local playwrights, they’re a rare breed whose work is usually relegated to workshop productions before being tucked away forever.
Richard Warren is one among a few exceptions. His adaptation of theater legend Dale Wasserman’s memoirs, called "Burning in the Night: A Hobo’s Song," will be performed in two local playhouses next month. And Warren’s "Shifting Gears" is now onstage at Theater Works in Peoria. It’s a full rewrite of "Pollywogs," a two-act play that Warren wrote back in 1999. It was his first play and it bombed.
The improved and retitled version received a pair of workshop productions at Phoenix Theatre, followed by a full production in Sedona. Theater Works’ executive director Daniel Schay signed the play last year. The result is a small, talky story that ponders a recent world in transition, circa 1961.
Warren’s tale of a family in flux is not, according to the playwright, “about any kind of dysfunction.” These people are functioning to the best of their ability Warren believes. The lead character Henry is a World War II vet who owns a sheet metal concern. He believes in all the post-war propaganda he’s been fed about mom staying home and keeping house, dad heading off to work and kids being seen and not heard.
Those kids are now grown and they convene with their parents every summer at the family cabin, these days to quibble about politics and race relations and gender roles.
Henry’s an archetypal post-war dad, a Central Casting father spilling over with right wing, anti-corporate rhetoric, venting his spleen against anything New American. He’s just about to lose our sympathy before a moving monologue about doing battle in the war — seeing his comrades shot to pieces, soldiers crushing their own to death with tanks.
Equal parts pathos and a terrifying glimpse into post-traumatic stress disorder, the speech is the best piece of writing in the play.
Warren’s comedy and commentary are equally subtle, recalling an especially drowsy episode of "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet," although in this case Ozzie is channeling Archie Bunker and Harriet is sexier than the Family Hour might have allowed.
Warren captures the meter of different voices and the concerns of two warring generations. His use of casual language gives the illusion that we are eavesdropping on neighbors who have a lot to say about corporate America, gender roles and that myth about the importance of the nuclear family.
"Shifting Gears" isn’t meant to wow us; it’s a bromide that makes broad points with gentle humor. Harriet Nelson would be thrilled.
"Shifting Gears" is at the Peoria Center for the Performing Arts. Robrt Pela’s reviews appear in the Phoenix New Times .