The message that Lee Hall’s The Pitmen Painters wants to convey is so lovely, I feel reluctant to point out that the play cheats its way into our gratitude. After all, how can you criticize a work that insists that aptitude for art respects no class distinctions, that, given the opportunity, even a common coal miner can draw like Daumier or theorize like Clement Greenberg? The fact is, I pretty much agree: With the proper training and sufficient time, most humans can probably paint credible figures and landscapes, and a few with that mystery called talent may even manage to create something splendid. As for genius, well, Peter Shaffer has reminded us that sometimes it falls upon a clown like Mozart and totally bypasses a solemn wonk like Salieri. Why shouldn’t Ashington, England (or Plant City or Valrico) produce a Raphael? You’d have to be the worst sort of elitist to argue otherwise.
Well, I don’t argue otherwise. What I argue is that given a class of only five miners, it’s absurd to believe that each will quickly prove himself a skillful artist, and just as hard to believe that these novices — some of whom have worked in the mines since they were 11 — will almost as instantly become eloquent commentators on aesthetics. But that’s what Painters wants us to accept — and no degree of insistence that the play is based on true events (as written about in a book by William Feaver) can make me think otherwise. The problem begins when the miner called Oliver (the likable George Weiner) turns in his very first artwork to teacher Robert Lyon (Gavin Hawk) and us; and it’s a perfectly composed, emotionally potent depiction of a miner struggling to do his job in a crushingly small space. The four other artists then proceed, over the next few scenes, to produce paintings far more advanced than any instruction they seem to have received. To make matters worse, teacher Lyon insists that he doesn’t want to teach technique — any idiot can learn technique — but merely expects his skeptical students to spontaneously express themselves. Well, what about point of view, color, line, perspective — how did these artists acquire these details? And wouldn’t it be more credible if at least one of them turned out a slow learner?
The Pitmen Painters may be a cheat, but its heart is big and unafraid. That alone makes it notable — and occasionally a little marvelous.
I feel churlish making these points because not only does Pitmen have the right attitude about class prejudice, it also unfolds with a lot of warm comedy. The five miner/artists are all so different that they naturally clash often, and some of their disagreements are wonderfully silly. Then there’s the humor of their repetitions — the way Harry (V Craig Heidenreich) returns so often to Marxist rhetoric, or George (the remarkably precise Steven Sean Garland) makes union rules his Ten Commandments. That surprising actor Derrick Phillips shows yet another side of his many gifts with a hilarious performance as impish, long-bearded Jimmy, and Britt Michael Gordon is nicely complex as wealthy upper-tier artist Ben Nicholson. There are only two women in the show — the model Susan Parks (Ally Farzetta), whose stated intention to disrobe for the five painters sends them into Puritan shock; and Helen Sutherland (the talented Denise Cormier), whose desire to put miner Oliver on a regular “stipend” — and thus free him from the mines — provides a rare and resonant subplot (am I alone in inferring that there’s a suppressed romance struggling for breath here?). Brendon Fox directs with special emphasis on the play’s laughs, and uses Scott Cooper’s nearly bare set — a wooden floor and a bunch of folding chairs — with a confident facility.
The Pitmen Painters
Three of five stars
American Stage, 163 3rd St. N., St. Pete.Through Aug. 14; Wed.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sat. & Sun., 3 p.m. $39-$49. 727-823-PLAY. americanstage.org.
Some moments to look forward to: Heidenreich/Harry departing from his usual doctrinaire speechifying to urge Weiner/Oliver to take wealthy Helen’s stipend; the five men and Hawk/Robert exchanging ideas on the meaning of meaning like a six-headed Abbott and Costello; Phillips/Jimmy’s stunned bafflement when Cormier/Helen announces that she actually wants to buy one of his paintings; and author Hall’s suggestions, peppered throughout the play, that he’s as committed to the goal of a just and compassionate social order as any of his oppressed characters.
This last point is important: we don’t see that many political plays here in the U.S., but politics is commonplace in contemporary English drama, from Edward Bond to David Hare and Caryl Churchill and beyond. So it’s refreshing to be reminded that the theater doesn’t have to be about psychology only, that real-world, historical problems are also fair game. The Pitmen Painters may be a cheat, but its heart is big and unafraid. That alone makes it notable — and occasionally a little marvelous.
This article appears in Jul 28 – Aug 4, 2016.