A few minutes into Act Two of Camping With Henry and Tom, now playing at American Stage, this heretofore insignificant exercise begins to have some serious contemporary resonance. Act One is disappointing. It introduces us to President Warren G. Harding, Henry Ford and Thomas Edison, convincing us that they'd gone camping together (as they did in real life) and managed, momentarily, to escape from the press and their various entourages. But once these basic elements are established, next to nothing happens. There's a lot of talk about an unfortunate deer that Ford's Model T had hit, a fair amount of joking — with an emphasis on Edison's cynical one-liners — and a brief discussion of reincarnation. There are a couple revelations — about Harding's alleged mistress and Ford's desire to run for President — and more inessential arguments, mostly about a hydroelectric plant in Tennessee. But it doesn't add up. So as the act draws to a close, one could be excused for feeling that author Mark St. Germain has a talent for dialogue but lacks a fundamental motive for writing a play about these three famous men.
But then Act Two begins and finally it becomes possible to find a philosophy underpinning the play and its protagonists. First, Harding, in a long monologue, admits that he neither wanted the job of President nor thinks himself particularly good at it: "I told Daugherty, I'm not a President. I'm not a great man. And he said, "Warren, greatness is a thing of the past. It's an illusion. There's no first raters out there now, and you're the best of the second rate. So you're it.'"
Then Edison reflects on human weakness: "Machines can be fixed, not men, Henry. I'm not sure whether we're over-designed or under-equipped, but I know we're unfixable."
And finally Ford, at his worst, most self-inflated moment, takes off on an anti-Semitic rant that imagines Jews trying to "bring the Christian world to its knees" and "trying to turn California into the Promised Land."
Now, as the evidence accumulates, we begin to understand what St. Germain is saying, and why he chose to revive one of the most mediocre of all our presidents. This crooked, second-rate material — trivial Harding, prejudiced Ford and even misanthropic Edison — is all we have to work with, he's suggesting. This is what our Presidents are made of, our Captains of Industry and our Geniuses. Look at these bigots, mediocre types and cynics and take the true measure of their — of our — "greatness." That's our condition: we're all "second raters." And that's our problem: Somehow we have to make a go of life — and progress — anyway.
Is it too pessimistic an accounting? Yes, possibly; but there's just enough truth in it — in Act Two, at any rate — to make Henry and Tom a provocative drama. (I'd be interested to know St. Germain's belief system: This is a play that pretty much accords with a view of human beings as essentially depraved.) In fact, the problem isn't this gloomy worldview — theater has seen worse — but that it takes so long to announce itself and is overlaid too often by sitcomish one-liners.
At other times, St. Germain seems to be depending on his research, as if veracity were enough to make a drama satisfying. And while the figure of Edison is used most often for comic purposes, there's a curious absence in the imagining of this storied inventor — he doesn't seem to want much of anything, not even to be out camping. So when Edison intervenes in the lives of Ford and Harding at a crucial moment, the move seems uncharacteristic — as would any striking gesture by a personage lacking much character.
But none of this is the actors' faults: Henry and Tom contradicts its own principles by having a first-rate, almost ideal cast. Steve Wise as Harding is particularly complex: Comfortable with power but self-deprecating, imposing but softhearted, he seems only the smallest bit disingenuous when he claims not to want to be President. As Ford, Jeff Norton gives one of the best performances of his career. His Ford is restless, hotheaded, impatient for a fight and willing to imagine one even when no one else seems interested.
As Edison, Ronald J. Aulgur makes the most of the same deadpan humor that he worked so successfully some months ago in Visiting Mr. Green. True, there are moments when Aulgur's usually flawless timing seems off, but the real problem with this part is that it's too much about laugh lines. Finally, Ned Averill-Snell is fine in the small part of brusque Secret Service agent Col. Edmund Starling.
Wendy Leigh, fresh from her success staging Art at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center, once again shows herself to be one of the best directors in the area; local audiences are lucky that she's working in theater again. And Lino Toyos' multileveled outdoor set, dominated by an enormous tree trunk, is nicely persuasive, as are Dara R. Vance's costumes — the suits and suspenders of pampered campers.
And yet … one can only wonder at what Henry and Tom might have been if author St. Germain had paid less attention to the ostensible needs of his audience and more to his own inspiration. Without the cheap laughs and cautious verisimilitude, this might have been a more consistently important play about the problem of political and technological progress when the fundamental raw material is our troubled humanity.
It's the kernel of that play — but only the kernel — that makes Henry and Tom a trip worth taking.
Hot Tip: Sincerity Forever, currently playing in the courtyard of the Viva La Frida Cafe y Galeria, is a hoot. This surreal Mac Wellman play only lasts an hour, but in that short time addresses fundamental questions of religion, good and evil, complacency and human responsibility. The Alley Cat Players have assembled a 10-member cast that speaks Wellman's torrents of language with hilarious aplomb — and that reminds us to beware lest mystic fur balls creep up on us and turn us one against another. This show is literate, profane, very funny and very serious.
Catch it if you can.
Contact Mark E. Leib at mark.leib@weeklyplanet.com or call 813-248-8888, ext. 305.
This article appears in May 29 – Jun 4, 2002.