The Off-Broadway Theatre Review: Fountain Theatre’s Fatherland
By Ross
“The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,” is pledged within the first few moments of The Fountain Theatre‘s verbatim theater production of Fatherland, now playing at the New York City Center’s Stage II theatre. And it is something of a refresher these days as we drive forward through some pretty sordid landscapes towards Election Day in America. So many lies are being told, with such wild abandonment, by that Orange Monster and his quick-reversal sidekick. Sadly and somehow correctly, they are counting on the one true fact that those who want to believe their lies will grab hold and run with them to the voting station. There will be no fact-checking by anyone because the truth is not what is wanted here by these folks. Support in the way they want to think, as hateful as it is, is exactly what is being searched for, and if the lies back up the belief, then the next thought, as said here, is “rebellion becomes duty.” A startling framing that they want to embrace.
This verbatim storytelling theatre exists to help us understand, to take on, first hand, without analysis or leanings the hows and whys, perhaps, one man gobbled up all the falsehoods spewed forth, before, during, and after the end of the presidency of that awful man. Possibly because it suited this man and his situation so much, giving him ample reason to run with it all the way up the steps of the Capital building on January 6, 2021, fully armed and ready to fight to the death. It’s a frightening truth, about many of the lost men of America, but this play has something else on its mind as well. It is also about his more left-leaning son, who couldn’t say anything to stop him and his falling down that monstrous rabbit hole. So he did what he thought was the correct thing to do, and informed the F.B.I. of his father’s actions when he saw how things were going and where it was taking him.
Conceived & directed by Stephen Sachs (Bakersfield Mist), Fatherland draws us in quickly, to a family torn apart by conspiracy theories and GOP lies drank in by the father, played with captivatingly uncomfortable energy by Ron Bottitta (Fountain’s The Children). He takes it all in as easily as the many Bud Lite cans of beer that continually appear on that open-ended stage, designed casually by Joel Daavid (Odyssey’s A Streetcar Named Desire) with a solid sound design by Steward Blackwood (Corey Atkins’ “September“) and lighting by Alison Brummer (Fountain’s Freight). It is his 2022 trial we are privy to, one Guy Wesley Reffitt, the first American convicted of insurrection during the attack on the U.S. Capitol building that January. But it is the journey to this point in history that we are given a ringside seat to; a story told by his teenage son who eventually turned him in to the police. It is through his testimony and his exact words, recorded and/or recited, that we hope to find a clearer view inside the brain of his father. And maybe see inside the soul of a movement that is more terrifying than we can even imagine standing outside the box and leaning over to the left.
Played captivatingly by the fresh-faced Patrick Keleher (ABC’s “The Rookie“), Fatherland leads the Son through his troubling experience, within his family and with his father. He is gently pushed and guided forward into the spotlight by a U.S. Attorney, played forcibly by Anna Khaja (Cultural Project’s Shaheed:…), and challenged aggressively by the Defense Attorney, played solidly by Larry Poindexter (Fountain’s The Boys in the Band). Using the words from court evidence, public statements, and the official court transcript of THE UNITED STAGES VS. GUY WESLEY REFFITT, we move through the dramatic testimony knowing full well that he will be convicted and sentenced to more than seven years of prison, mainly, but not solely on the testimony of the teenage son who loves him dearly.
The 19-year-old son says quite clearly that he loves his father, but doesn’t recognize the man he has become after hours of watching Fox News, drinking in the koolaid like a lost soul dying of thirst. He watches in horror, casually at first, and then with more and more alarm, as his dad becomes enamored and bewitched by the ghost-written book, “The Art of the Deal“. The road becomes a steep and fast one, leading eventually to a more violent radicalization version of his once-loved troubled father. The structuring of the play guides us as clearly as maybe the lawyer does, trying to engage our empathetic response to this young man and how he was feeling as he watched his father’s decline. It’s an odd question that the attorney asks as often as a stereotypical psychotherapist would in a trauma session for PTSD. And if it hadn’t been made clear that these words were her exact words, I might not have believed that the question of “how did that make you feel?” would have been asked as repeatedly as it was. Maybe the repetition was a bit of artistic licensing, to help us fully hear and understand what it was like for this teenage boy. But it didn’t exactly add to the authentic air that was trying to be formulated.
Jack, the son, and his experience of the slow alienation is the cornerstone of this unwrapping, and Keleher makes it easy for us to empathize, especially when we watch his father, fully radicalized, done his gun and his bullet-proof vest, with the plastic ties made ready, “locked and loaded” go into a combat-zone mindset. Costumed intensely by Danyele E. Thomas (Pasadena Playhouse’s The Sound Inside), I couldn’t help but continually put myself in this young man’s shoes. What would I have done if I saw my parent, walking around with a loaded gun on his belt, talking the way he was talking about the government and the election? It’s a complication that I can’t quite fathom, coming from two very Liberal parents and growing up in Canada. It would be hard enough to witness a gun in our household, let alone that kind of Fox News spewing paranoia that is on display here, full of sound and fury, but signifying little to nothing of the true honest state of the Union. Would I have done the same as this teenage boy? Or would I have even stayed around as long as he did? That is the question. And I can’t say I have the answer.
With the words being repeated as spoken, literally from the trial (and I’m guessing from other recordings and interviews), the spiral to violence is apparent, but uninvestigated or unpacked. This is not a play, written to dig deep into the psychology of this man and father, but an unwrapping created to bear witness to what happened to people like this man, for an audience that sits firmly to the left, preaching to the choir, one might say, with all the right notes and footnotes attached. It’s captivating and disturbing, but also emotionally distant and somewhat removed, even when the Defense Attorney, doing his job, has to find holes to punch in his testimony. It’s frustrating to watch, but somewhat honest, even when it feels overblown and snarly, as we all know the outcome of the trial and our predetermined judgment.
We stay at arm’s length, for the most part, watching and rolling with the unraveling, but not really feeling pulled in emotionally, as we aren’t digging into it beyond the surface level, merely listening in to a manufactured construct of snippets and recorded words. And did we really need to listen to those awful recordings of that horrid Orange Monster spreading untruths once again? Once was enough, in my mind. I’ve had enough of him, and I hope we never have to hear from him again when this whole sordid mess is over. I never got as frustrated with Fatherland as I did with those recordings (and with some of the mindsets of voters in America), but I am curious what an actual play would have been like if it tried to dig into the psychology of the Fox News warping of this man’s mind. That’s an unpacking that might prove more connective, rather than just reliving something that is giving us all PTSD. No matter how good the acting in this play is.
Fatherland opened September 26, 2024, at City Center Stage II and runs through November 23. For more information and tickets: nycitycenter.org
