Community Archived Reviews SECRET: The Josephine Baker FBI File
KDHX Theatre Review - SECRET: The Josephine Baker FBI File
St. Louis Community College at Forest Park
Reviewed by Richard Green
There are two real stars of this piece: The first is Paul Guzzardo, who assembled the very flashy and memorable multi-media montages of nightclub entertainer Josephine Baker in the time of the "Red Scare." The second is actor Joe Engel, who somehow manages to bring red-baiting broadcaster Walter Winchell vividly to life—despite the fact that the play technically has no playwright. But rest easy, it may have something better, which I'll get to in just six more paragraphs, I promise. There are plenty of clues leading up to that, so let's play, shall we?
Mr. Guzzardo's incredible multi-media barrage of McCarthyism is terribly impressive (hint #1, at the real significance of the work), while Mr. Engel's fine, punchy delivery as broadcaster Winchell crushes every one of his wan, good-hearted cast-mates like a steamroller. Even at intermission, Mr. Guzzardo's Red Scare propaganda echoes through the lobby and down into the men's room (this is hint #2), in a chilling recreation of 1950's anti-communist brainwashing. And in 2005, it's a timely reminder of government-sponsored hysteria. On stage, Dick Watt is a colorless figure as J. Edgar Hoover, owing mostly to the vaguest presumption of a narrative at work. i>SECRET has no playwright, but it has twenty-one technical crew people operating multi-media equipment, and sound and light (with—hint #3—no lighting gels and not much lighting emphasis for the actors), as well as music and on a bare-bones set (hint #4), under three giant screens.
I suppose it's a miracle there's even one remotely believable character. Most of the performers are mere sock-puppets on stage for The Message (hint #5). We might extrapolate from this that Mr. Guzzardo and his team of very talented video artisans chose to gain a few additional kinetic properties from live performers, in an almost grudging way. A reasonable person could assume there's more drama going on out in the booth than up on stage. But if you take it to the next cerebral scaffold, and factor-in some good old theatre history, things may start to look very different...
There's plenty of raw material here to work with, and not just in the official history and the exhaustive research and very elaborate "Power-Point" editing. But there's still room for improvement: Serroge Watt, as the male chorus member, manages to project the greatest commitment of any member of the supporting cast, even in a shockingly anachronistic "rap" number after a ruckus at New York's "Stork Club" in 1951 (hint #6)—but the ruckus is described, not shown, which is a problem any way you look at it.
The balance of power wants to shift when Baker files suit, and Winchell gets rattled and drops out of sight for "medical reasons." His "Jergens Journal" comes back to ABC radio eventually, but his brand of sensationalism has somehow driven a wedge between him and his sources at the FBI, and more dangerously it has apparently alienated his sponsor, Jergens Lotion. We could really use a human face to put on Jergen's decision (presumably an "oily" face) to break ties with Winchell, for the sake of structure. And from Hoover, we get just the slightest inkling of crocodile tears for Winchell's fall from glory, which may be another fixable problem. It's clear that Winchell couldn't stop raising false alarms in his Sunday night broadcasts, but we need more of a sense of growing disenchantment from within the FBI in the acting.
Samantha Rall provides a rare, pleasant respite from the monolithic propaganda campaign as Ms. Baker, but she doesn't get to sing or dance, as I recall. Wonderful carefree movies of the real Josephine Baker dance on the big screens upstage, in a manner that is hypnotic and dadaistic. Likewise the actors' disgraced exits, up through the audience (hint #7), are also effective. So is a humorous tango between Winchell and Hoover, though that could be comically broader, still. For that matter, Mr. Watt could do more when a long string of pearls is thrown 'round his neck (as a friend of mine likes to say, "if you don't have a character, get a prop!"). However, given the characters' general lack of internal life (hint #8), and the overwhelming dominance of The Message (sorry, this is just a rehash of hint #5), this might mistakenly be seen as nothing more than a very impressive technical achievement.
All right, players, time's up! The dominant theme here seems to be that a tsunami of disinformation and innuendo drowned-out the fight to end racial injustice ten years before freedom marches and the civil rights act were finally taken seriously. It's almost stated outright that McCarthyism was a sideshow to distract from the treatment of blacks in America in the 1950's. This makes it a truly important effort, though not an entertaining one. Ah, the spectre of Berthold Brecht, pounding us over the head in a way that is still quite haunting and somehow fascinating. The alienation of sparsely drawn characters and minimal sets is certainly there. And the placard-type images at hyper-digitized speed are way, way beyond the wildest dreams of Mother Courage or The Good Person of Szechuan.
In fact, the real significance of SECRET is that it amounts to a sort of 21st Century "High Brechtology," where we understand the idealistic computer/multi-media programmers' intent, but just like Brecht, Mr. Guzzardo steadfastly refuses to comply with our desire to live through the characters. In that new, harsh light, I reluctantly move that the show be allowed stand more or less as it is, with perhaps some rabble-rousing thrown-in at the Stork Club, and maybe another little ditty (about the fall of Winchell?) for style ("Ding-Dong, The Winch Is Dead"?). Mr. Guzzardo can be proud of a truly outstanding job of compiling images of a memorable time in history. Now, in my opinion, he ought to fill-in the characters of Ms. Baker and Mr. Hoover a little—even if he wishes to advertise under a Computerized-Brechtian shingle, which I freely offer up for his use. As things stand it's stunning to see Mr. Engel (and the huge tech crew) walk off with the show. A nice little riot for Serroge Watt and a song for Ms. Rall could easily fulfill a surprising "SECRET" promise .
The cast also includes Valencia Tims as the on-stage archivist (she could be more stentorian, if you buy the Brechtian comparison), and La Dora Boyd and Chanteha Moore as members of the chorus, who provide one nice Brechtian song (though they could be even more saccharine). The period costumes are by an un-credited costumer. SECRET: The Josephine Baker FBI File continues through March 6th, 2005, at Forest Park Community College, Friday and Saturday at eight, and Sunday at three. For information, call 314-725-2021.
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