A Play's Special Interest Group
To D.C. Audiences, '40s Comedy May Not Seem So Dated

By Jane Horwitz,
Special to The Washington Post
Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Audiences seeing "State of the Union," at Ford's Theatre Friday through Oct. 22, will very likely react to certain lines as if Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse had written their Pulitzer Prize-winning political comedy yesterday instead of in 1945.

For example: "We can be sure of one thing. We can depend on the administration to keep on making mistakes."

Ha-ha -- except the characters are talking about Harry Truman's Democratic administration.

"There are quite a few lines like that that will get a response," says director Kyle Donnelly. "They would get a response anywhere, but I think particularly in D.C. . . . which is one of the fun things doing it here."

In the story (made into a film by Frank Capra in 1948 with Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn), a team of Republican operatives grooms a politically naive but idealistic and progressive captain of industry to run against Truman in 1948.

"The humor is on all the things we have to do, all the spins we have to take to try to get someone nominated for president," says Donnelly, whose most recent Washington staging was "Born Yesterday" at Arena Stage. "It's sometimes ridiculous -- often ridiculous."

Donnelly will keep the play in its 1940s time period but frame it with visual references to "campaigns throughout American history." That way, she says, "when you come out of it, I think you should have the feeling of: Oh my God, things haven't changed that much."

Veteran stage and television actor Jim Abele plays the airplane manufacturing magnate setting his sights on the White House. "His political handlers get in the way of what his message is," observes Abele (pronounced ABE-lee). "Initially, he has things that he feels very deeply about . . . but his handlers tailor all that to appeal to the special interests so that he can court the votes, and he loses his way."

The actor, who lives in Los Angeles and has done guest roles on "The West Wing" and "Six Feet Under," says he traveled to see Donnelly at the University of California, San Diego (where she runs the actor training program) to lobby for the part. "It sounds a little trite, but it gives me an opportunity to say something that I feel strongly about as well," he says.

Abele adds that he identifies with "the naivete of someone who feels we can all get along. . . . It is a beautiful message, and it's nice to recognize what we should all be aiming for, even if we cannot attain [it]."

In conjunction with the show, veteran reporters Bob Schieffer and Helen Thomas will take part in a panel discussion at Ford's on Monday titled "Presidential Politics: Pundits, Personalities and the People." The event, at 7 p.m., is free. Call 202-347-6262.

Synetic Style

During rehearsals for Synetic Theater's new adaptation of Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" (at the Kennedy Center through Oct. 1), Dan Istrate, playing flawed genius Dr. Victor Frankenstein, accidentally poured a bit of vinegar into the eyes and mouth of Irakli Kavsadze, who plays the Creature he is trying to re-animate.

The liquid is used as a prop to help make smoke and bubbles in the doctor's laboratory. Istrate was only supposed to mime pouring it onto the Creature's face. Kavsadze's eyes stung like mad, but there was no harm.

Istrate cites the aftermath to the incident as typical of the closeness of the Synetic company: Though Kavsadze was the injured party, Istrate says the actor "comes back to me after an hour to see if I am okay."

That closeness, according to the two actors and Artistic Director Paata Tsikurishvili, has artistic as well as collegial significance.

The director says the troupe is so well trained in his physical style of performance that he and the actors got this show ready in two months. Previous Synetic productions took three or four. Still, it was nearly twice as long as most Washington theater companies rehearse.

Kavsadze, a longtime lead actor with Synetic, says the key to this is a kind of partnership, though "partnership [does] not necessarily mean being on the stage together. . . . Even if you're not looking at your partner, he's understanding you."

Adds the Romanian-born Istrate, who gets tossed around by Kavsadze more and more as the play's tragedy unfolds and the Creature grows angry: "It's like a dialogue that has to show physically."

Rehearsals with Tsikurishvili and his choreographer-actress wife, Irina, begin with hours of warm-ups and improvisation he calls "messing-around time."

The director says he and his actors approach characters and their psychology similarly to other companies -- at first.

"We try to dig it out, like other theaters, and then it's transformed" into the physical. Yet it is never merely physical, adds Tsikurishvili. "If actors are only doing physical, without emotion, nobody's going to buy it. It's high acting, really."

And when the director or choreographer ask for changes, the company has a shorthand now in the way everyone communicates. "We have to understand in seconds -- it goes in your brain: Okay, she wants this, " says Kavsadze.

"A lot of times, we don't even know where Paata's going to take it. . . . It's a matter of trust," says Istrate.

Follow Spot

· Catalyst Theater will present New York-based actor Tim Flynn in "A Night in November," by Irish dramatist Marie Jones, for two pay-what-you-can benefit performances Saturday and Monday at 7:30 at Capitol Hill Arts Workshop, 545 Seventh St. SE. The solo piece is about a man who attends a soccer match between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Visit http://www.catalysttheater.org .

· Didactic Theatre Company will present "Orange Flower Water" Oct. 19-Nov. 12 at District of Columbia Arts Center. The play about friendship, marriage and betrayal is by Craig Wright ("Grace," "Melissa Arctic," TV's "Six Feet Under"). Patrick Crowley will direct. Call 202-249-0782 or visit http://www.didactictheatre.com .