Review: 'THE EXTREMISTS?' 'Exactly...' at TheatreWorks New Milford

What does 12 Angry Men and The Extremists have in common? Did you guess politics? Because if so, you would be right. But beyond that, the only similarity between the two plays is that they are both excellent examples of, what I call, "talking plays." A talking play is a play where the core of the script is its dialogue and role of movement is more or less moot; Meaning there is a lot of talking and not a lot of moving. But the problem is that moving is one of the major components of stage plays that keep the audience moving. If an audience wanted to listen to somebody talk for two hours with no movement, then they'd go to a lecture. So, what do you do? You look to plays like 12 Angry Men and The Extremists to learn how to get around it.

The Extremists is an hour and a half long, one act play about two guys talking about extremism, written by CJ Hopkins. When I heard that run time and learned there was no intermission, I was worried too, but as soon as the show began, I realized that the director, Francis A Daley, knew exactly what he was doing. On the set of a politics talk show, "Issues In Focus," Dick Hedgerow- played by Hugh Tucker- brings on a guest, Norman Krieger- played by Fred Rueck- to discuss his upcoming book on battling extremism in the world. What was set up to be a dry, lengthy discussion turned into a frantic introspection of who the extremists really are.

Tucker and Reuck have no enviable task: To have memorized this entire show, which consists solely of the two of them bantering back in forth in rapid succession, is no small feat: Even with the aid of prompts which they appeared to have hidden from the audience on their news desk (If not, then the pair spent a lot of time pretending to read, which is almost as impressive). Tucker's Hedgerow played the part of the charismatic talk show host, full of confidence and questions, and seemed to take on the role of audience member himself, as his emotions throughout the show often matched the reactions of those sitting in the seats. The real magic, however, came in Rueck's performance as Kriger, who seemed to constantly flirt with the line between being an extremist expert or an expert extremist.

So, how does The Extremists tackle the whole "no movement" problem? At key moments throughout the show, Rueck and Tucker burst from their seats to make a point or reveal some inner emotion that pulls the audience back into the complex, convoluted, circular conversation that seems to have lost its focus and wandered into non-speak. To navigate these crisscrossing themes and moments of movement shows the nuance and the work that the entire cast and crew poured into this production and left the audience speechless with only one thought in their mind: Am I the extremist?

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