Review: RECON$TRUXION at Alabama Shakespeare Festival
A play about the American hero you probably haven't heard of
MONTGOMERY, ALABAMA — If there were an award for the best choice of a play for America's 250th birthday, ReCON$truXion might be the winner. Playwright Robert Schenkkan has created a story that is a "warts and all" portrayal of a critical chapter in American history, and the play and the audience are the better for it. ReCON$truXion is a triumph that educates, edifies, and entertains in its world premiere at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival.
ReCON$truXion tells the story of the political career of John Lynch, Mississippi's first Black Speaker of the House and later a congressman representing that state. But Lynch deserves to be more than a footnote in history. During the turbulent 1860s and 1870s, he was a leading voice for the rights of the newly freed Black men. Robert Schenkkan's script portrays Lynch as an American hero and a voice of moral authority by telling Lynch's story as a memory play. The framing device is a 1915 conversation with his niece Mabel, who serves as his scribe and is a budding civil rights activist herself. Most of the play, though, is told as flashbacks to the Reconstruction era.
ReCON$truXion is reminiscent of that recent American history superhit, Hamilton. Both plays follow the career of an underappreciated figure to teach the audience about America's failure to live up to its founding ideals. Both plays also have a throughline in which their main subject battles for years against a longtime political foe (Mississippi politician L. Q. C. Lamar in ReCON$truXion), and both even show the events of a presidential election that ends with a tie in the electoral college. Finally, there is a strong undercurrent of patriotism to both plays. Like Lin-Manuel Miranda, Schenkkan seems prompted to write his work because of his love for America and a desire to spur his audience to bring this nation closer to its full potential. In this effort, Schenkkan succeeds admirably. No rap music, though.
I hope that ReCON$truXion gets many more productions, though the script could use a few minor revisions. Some of the dialogue is anachronistic; the White characters (including southerners) use language like "freemen" exclusively, and not the more common terminology of the time that one would expect them to use. I suspect that Schenkken wants to avoid using language that today is considered offensive, but this choice sanitizes the pervasive racism that Lynch and his people faced. However, the character who speaks the most like a modern American is Agnes (a teacher from the north who is Lynch's love interest). Multiple times, she uses the phrase "African Americans," which did not receive widespread casual usage until the late 1980s. Her discussion of Thomas Jefferson's relationship with Sally Hemings is also out of character for the period; at the time, the relationship was seen as mere rumor, and it was not a widely known aspect of Jefferson's legacy.
Despite these flaws in the dialogue, ReCON$truXion is superbly written. Schenkkan expertly makes political wheeling and dealing into high-stakes drama. The human element is always present, however. The script never loses sight of the fact that the lives and rights of real individuals are at stake, and some of these (like hotelier James Wormley, played by William Oliver Watkins) are drawn out quickly without sacrificing depth. The play is political drama made personal. As such, ReCON$truXion functions as a prequel to Schenkkan's All the Way and The Great Society. I would be fascinated to watch all three plays produced by the same company.
Eden Marryshow stars as John Lynch, and he gives an engrossing performance that won me over immediately. Marryshow shows Lynch as an idealistic and charming man, and I never doubted that I was watching a natural-born politician. There is an urgency and focus in the performance; as the character turns his attention to each new issue, it seems to consume him — for better or for worse. Marryshow never portrays any doubt or uncertainty in his performance. Marryshow is smart enough to understand that this play needs a main actor who knows how to occupy the moral high ground without getting on his high horse.
The only problem with Marryshow's performance is that he never seems to age. The real John Lynch held his first public office at age 22 and was 67 years old in 1915. But Marryshow's physicality varies over the course of the 45 years of the play. Time does not seem to wear down Lynch.
Showing the passage of time should have also been a consideration for director Steve H. Broadnax III. However, Broadnax's direction is otherwise impeccable. Scenes move quickly from one to another, sometimes with shocking transitions that contrast the civility of the statehouse with the disturbing violence of the mob. I also loved how the impassioned speeches during the 1875 debate over civil rights were staged so that the audience sitting in the thrust seating is transformed into members of the House of Representatives. It is a scene that pulls the audience into the debate and makes them stakeholders in the outcome of the vote. Small-scale scenes (e.g., Agnes and Lynch's picnic, or the negotiation dinner at Wormley's hotel) are also masterfully directed and bring intimacy into this grand drama.
Devin Kessler plays all of the female roles in ReCON$truXion, and when playing Agnes and Mabel, she has the task of providing commentary on Lynch's political career. She does this well, but Kessler's characters are most interesting when they are a sounding board for Lynch. Kessler has a nice connection with Marryshow, and she brought a refreshing dose of femininity in a play that is otherwise dominated by men.
Grant Chapman plays L. Q. C. Lamar with a disarming southern drawl that betrays the character's conniving nature. Lamar is slimy in his underhanded dealing, but Chapman refuses to portray him a cartoony racist villain. Chapman makes Lamar realistically motivated mostly by self-interest and political advantage. Sure, Lamar was a racist, but because Chapman acts like a modern politician Lamar feels relevant and not like the relic of a distant past. Chapman understands the value of subtlety in the portrayal, and this is clearly a situation where "less is more."
The rest of the cast is the most cohesive ensemble I have seen in years. They frictionlessly move and act to execute transitions, pop in and out of the action, and give the play the momentum it needs for the conclusion to feel inevitable. Mark Light-Orr was a standout as James G. Blaine, with a commanding voice and firm bearing that matches the character's presidential ambitions. Speaking of presidents, I loved how Liam Craig played Ulysses S Grant with the mannerisms of a former general, which gave the performance layers of history behind it. Matt Wolpe as future president James A. Garfield emerged as one of the second act's greatest strengths, and the frustration that Garfield shows towards the unbending Lynch is illustrative in showing how Lynch alienated allies. (Plus, Wolpe even looks like the real Garfield!)
The acting, writing, and directing are so good in ReCON$truXion that everything else seems like window dressing. Richard St. Clair's costume designs work well enough, though I was surprised that most of the men wore modern shirts and ties when their jackets, vests, and other clothes (even spats) were so faithful to the time period. I was also annoyed by how much many actors' shoes squeaked as they walked. The projections designed by Rasean Davonté Johnson were very helpful in setting the time and place of scenes and providing ambience. However, there was too much reliance on the cliché of the newspaper headlines, which should have been better designed to resemble newspapers at the time. The use of a modern font was particularly jarring.
Let's be real: when a theatre critic has to nitpick about a font choice to find something to complain about, you know that a production must be great. ReCON$truXion is a moving story that teaches its audience that, "Reconstruction did not fail. It was betrayed," to the detriment of some of America's most vulnerable citizens. But it ends with hope and optimism that this country can be reach its full potential. Whether as a political drama, a biography, or a cautionary tale, ReCON$truXion is a stellar play that deserves success in Montgomery and many future productions all around this great nation.
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