Review: POWER OF SAIL at Geffen Playhouse

While we never actually meet Benjamin Carver, the character whose presence looms large over Grellong's POWER OF SAIL (written by Evan Henerson), the man sounds toxic. A White nationalist, Holocaust denier and KKK sympathizer, Carver is a magnetic media personality who periodically gets himself on cable news. This is the individual that Charles Nichols, a distinguished Harvard history professor - and confirmed liberal - has invited to speak at his nationally-renowned symposium. Nichols contends that bringing Carver to campus all about the First Amendment. "The answer to hate speech," Nichols is fond of saying, "is more speech."

This act of what could generously be called questionable judgment on the part of Nichols is the first bit of tinder that sparks POWER OF SAIL, a smart firecracker of a play that is getting a blistering production at The Geffen Playhouse directed by Weyni Mengesha. Presenting itself initially as a debate masquerading as dramatic fiction, SAIL quickly pivots and deepens, morphing into a tale that is equal parts character study and thriller. As Grellong plays around with time sequencing, the twists start coming. If this were a book, you'd read it into the wee hours. Mengesha's pitch-perfect cast at the Geffen includes Amy Brenneman, Hugo Armstrong, Tedra Millan, Seth Numrich and Brandon Scott. And oh, by the way, we've also got the redoubtable Bryan Cranston playing the professor.

Grellong has set the action not exactly right now, but close. We're in 2019, before COVID, before the murder of George Floyd. The Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville isn't so far distant; and even though we're at a university among smart sophisticated people with progressive ideas, this is still Donald Trump's America. Harvard is supposed to be a beacon of learning, of discussion and of enlightenment. So contends Nichols and Amy Katz (Amy Brenneman), Nichols's dean and longtime friend. But aligned as she is with the university's administration, Katz wants no part of Carver on campus. Neither do the students who have learned of the visit through a leak and are up in arms and protesting. Scenic designer Rachel Myers' quite elegant rotating set shuffles us between the halls of academe (with ivy, of course), a train platform and a dive bar. "Enter to grow in wisdom," reads a plaque outside Nichols's office. Well, some people in POWER OF SAIL are taking this advice. Others, not so much,

Nichols is getting it from all sides. Maggie Rosen (Tedra Millan), one of Nichols's PhD candidates and researchers, wants the Carver visit canceled and she's also trying to broker a safe summit meeting between Nichols and members of the Hillel and Black Student Association to discuss the matter (Nichols refuses). Baxter Forrest (Brandon Scott), a former protégé of Nichols turned author and media star, is back in town to bury his father, and he too tries to get Nichols to change course. The only person even slightly in Nichols's corner over the visit is Lucas Poole (Seth Numrich), another of Nichols's graduate students who is also gunning for a prestigious fellowship. Nichols enlists Lucas to accompany him on a pre-visit dinner at Carver's compound in Maine. This would be act of spectacularly bad judgment #2.

Nichols himself is a conundrum. On the one hand, he says he's trying to bring Carver to campus to debate and humiliate him. With Harvard ties going back five generations, Nichols feels both smug and self-righteous. At the same time, the man's not getting any younger, he hasn't published recently and he's watching a new crop of academics - some of them his own students - threatening to eclipse him. "I'm one of the good guys," he insists, despite mounting evidence that actually, no, he's not.

As the plot advances and emotions heighten, Grellong gives us insight into different strata of academic politics and power dynamics (Nichols's is not the only reputation in jeopardy). Characters we have overlooked reveal new motivations, and the story starts to consider the ways that race can shake things up. Late in the play, two characters face off in an encounter over the effects of White privilege that feels a bit too on the nose. On the other hand, people can be awfully honest when they've had a couple too many.

Numrich does great work with Lucas, tapping into the ambition and resentment of this socially maladroit grad student. Millan's Maggie - a model of self-assuredness and principle - is his perfect foil. As the man who has achieved everything that both characters covet, Scott gives Baxter a healthy dose of good-looks, charm and modesty. His character represents, we are led to believe, the absolute best of what a place like Harvard can churn out.

Before her career took off on TV and film, Amy Brenneman was a frequent live stage performer, (most notably with the Cornerstone Theater Company) and she knows her way around the footlights. Dean Amy Katz is stuck in a bind between the demands of her school, her ethics and her longtime friendship with Nichols. It's a complex role and Brenneman (a Harvard graduate in real life) is quietly excellent.

And there's Cranston who has been known to disappear into characters of every imaginable stripe - from LBJ to Walter White, from Dalton Trumbo to Howard Beale. If Grellong had written Benjamin Carver into this play, Cranston probably could have brought him off and made him fascinating.

As it is, it's easy to see what attracted the actor to a wreck like Charles Nichols. Wearing clothes that make him match his office (Samantha C. Jones's costumes nail the look), the bearded Cranston infuses this compromised, flamed out intellectual superstar with plenty of insight. The same guy who can hobnob with geniuses and build model ships is also, we learn, a man capable of deep friendships with people who aren't Ivy League. Cranston has got some nice interplay working with Frank (Hugo Armstrong), a barkeep with whom Nichols discusses books and builds model ships.

Make no mistake, Charles Nichols is going to take a fall and a whole lot of people in his orbit are going to be delighted to witness it. The beauty of Grellong's thoughtful play - and of Cranston's performance - is how conflicted we in the audience may find this descent.

POWER OF SAIL plays through March 20 at The Geffen Playhouse, 10886 Le Conte Ave., Westwood. (310) 208-2028, geffenplayhouse.org.

Photo of Brandon Scott and Bryan Cranston by Jeff Lorch

To post a comment, you must register and login.