In a program note, playwright-director John Fisher says he was a big fan of Hogan's Heroes as a kid, at least until he realized that life in a Nazi POW camp wasn't much like a sitcom. But in Fisher's Shakespeare Goes to War, his new play for Theatre Rhino, it could be a little bit like theater camp for grunts, albeit with a Nazi officer as its artistic director. "Get to the smooch-smooch kissy part," he commands two American male prisoners in a Shakespeare play, cast, by necessity, in the all-male custom of Shakespeare's day.
The men, at least some of them, are reluctant to engage in same-sex smooching, but the reward of extra food for the half-starved prisoners helps them over this barrier. The events at the POW camp near the end of the war provide context for and something of a mirror to the framing scenes that take place at a suburban California high school in the late 70s. Offering an allusion to Nazi philosophies is the pending vote on the highly divisive Briggs Initiative, which would have banned gays and lesbians from working in California's public schools.
If it had passed, you just know that the drama teachers would have been first to the chopping block. And the primary potential victim of the play's concerns was one of those Shakespearean prisoners of war who now teaches English and theater with a rare passion. Mr. Smith is also the favorite teacher of the play's narrator, who is realizing he himself is gay and makes a misguided attempt to protect Mr. Smith's teaching career.
With the play frequently traveling between time and place, Fisher makes ingenious use of the Thick House theater space. The audience is seated on stage while the action transpires on the steep rise of the usual seating area, which is now bare except for several utilitarian set pieces that can be rearranged to become Desdemona's death bed in a POW Othello or a lectern in a 1970s classroom. Further fusing the long-ago, far-apart scenes is having the 15-character play performed by just five actors.
This dual-role casting has the most potency as Fisher himself successfully plays two very different mentors in the apposing scenes, the kindly Mr. Smith at high school and the severe POW camp commander in wartime Germany. That potency is continued as Gabriel A. Ross sensitively plays both high schooler Jack, who worships Mr. Smith, and the young version of a teacher at POW camp, who always ends up in the women's roles.
Kevin Copps gets the biggest display of versatility, creating six characters of very different demeanor, including a British colonel, a Russian major, and even Gov. Ronald Reagan (who, bless him, actually came out against the Briggs Initiative). As both the class clown and a POW racist, Sean Keehan can be both funny and a little scary. Jesse F. Vaughn is believably gruff as the only black POW in this particular camp (and is made to play, of course, Othello), and he's also believably sweet as Jack's first boyfriend in high school.
Fisher can usually be counted on to write at least one new play each season for Theatre Rhino, of which he is executive director, and Shakespeare Goes to War is one of his strongest plays in years. From the intriguing symmetry of scenes past and present to the emotional richness of the main characters, he finds a comfortable mix of the comic and the serious. Scenes in the POW camp can indeed be funny, not because of the circumstances, but through human idiosyncrasies on both sides of the war. And there is, as one might expect, plenty of humor in the high school scenes, but there are also leaden clouds hovering.
The play is undoubtedly too long, especially in the second act, in which gay love begins to bloom for Jack, and the should-we-or-shouldn't-we flirtations aren't worth all the time they are afforded. And while some characters are understandably exaggerated for comic effect, it pushes plausibility when a flamboyant middle-aged teacher appears in a student production wearing bare-bottom chaps. That alone would have gained the Briggs Initiative at least a few votes.
Shakespeare Goes to War will run at Thick House through Nov. 29. Tickets are $10-$35. Call (800) 838-3006 or go to therhino.org.