Days of Rage
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Cititour.com Review
Like many a photograph taken by a true artist, Steven Levenson’s new work, “Days of Rage,” now premiering at Second Stage, expertly captures its time and place: a ramshackle “collective” house in upstate New York (perfectly designed by Louisa Thompson) inhabited by three young radicals-cum-revolutionaries in the fall of 1969. But unlike a great work by Weston or Avedon, the meaning of Levenson’s snapshot remains maddeningly unclear.
That’s not to say the 90-minute work isn’t involving or full of sharply-defined characterizations and smart dialogue. It is, but in a more minor key than “Dear Evan Hansen” (for which he wrote the book) or “If I Forget.” Nor is its enigmatic quality the fault of Trip Cullman’s fast-paced direction or a cast of five excellent performers.
But one is ultimately left perplexed primarily by Levenson’s intention in writing the piece. Is it somehow meant to remind us that 50 years later, we still need to try to fight injustice in the world, or is it a cautionary tale that doing so often leads to little result, other than perhaps death, physical injury and the dissolution of lifelong friendships? I couldn’t say.
As the work opens, the three members of the house, who spend time organizing a trip to a Chicago protest, handing out leaflets, reading Lenin and sleeping and bickering with each other (and not paying bills on time) are the slightly too-sweet Spence (an appealing Mike Faist, willing to bare all), his harder-nosed ex-girlfriend Jenny (the excellent Lauren Patten) and his more recent squeeze, the often combative Quinn (a fine Odessa Young), whose working-class roots are miles away from Jenny’s and Spence’s.
The collective has already been fragmented by the sudden disappearance of Richard and Jeffrey (unseen characters whose fates will be eventually revealed) and is thrown into further disarray by the sudden appearance of two other people: Hal, an African-American Sears salesman (superbly portrayed by J. Alphonse Nicholson) who reluctantly chases Jenny off the store’s property but eventually develops a romantic relationship with her, and Peggy (a surprisingly effective Tavi Gevinson) a seemingly none-too-smart young woman who has run away from Seattle and ends up putting both her money and her mouth into the group’s anti-war cause.
For almost the entire play, Levenson keeps us guessing as to whether Hal and Peggy are who they claim, but it’s a tactic that misfires. As you keep looking for clues as to the veracity of their stories, you also keep getting distracted from the bigger picture: how the relationships among these characters are constantly being changed, for better and worse, by these two people. (The fact that Hal has a younger brother fighting in Vietnam is an added element in this potentially explosive cocktail, one I wish were more fully explored.)
For some audience members, “Days of Rage” proves problematic for another reason. I suspect Levenson really wants us to care about his three main characters, but they’re so naïve, self-involved and, in many ways, downright stupid, that not everyone will really be able to muster sufficient empathy for them.
Above all, there is another hard, inescapable truth: not every picture is worth 1,000 or more words.
By Brian Scott Lipton
Visit the Site
https://2st.com/
Cast
Mike Faist, Tavi Gevinson, J. Alphonse Nicholson, Lauren Patten, and Odessa Young
Open/Close Dates
Opening 10/9/2018
Closing 11/25/2018
Theatre Info
Second Stage Theatre
307 West 43rd Street
New York, NY 10036
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