'The Third Army' marches into Long Wharf

I always regretted not buying a small chunk of the Berlin Wall when they were being sold through special TV offers. After seeing the world premiere of The Third Army at the Long Wharf Theater, however, I am glad I never could afford one; Joe Sutton's new drama is close enough to the Cold War for me. In this play, the Third Army is made up of men, mostly too old to make it through boot camp, and women, who are still barred from the ground forces. They are not some renegade militia, but members of big corporations that have invaded the Czech Republic to activate the Temelin Nuclear Power Station. Lubo Brodsky, played with a Satanic flare by Jan Trisket, stands among the eager businessmen in his ruthless pursuit of approval for the project from Pavel Marik (Neil Maffline), the mayor of the small town of Hluboka.

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A recording of a calm voice, reminiscent of that in airport announcements—the one that always seems to herald disaster—introduces the setting and the conflict. With the impersonal and non-physical settings, mainly homes and offices, that follow, any viewer hoping for graphic action film clichés is quickly discouraged—not even one person will be lowered into a boiling tank of hazardous waste. Even so, the play is likely more frightening with its lack of Hollywood visuals, since visceral action such as fights or mad lovemaking cannot match the intimacy of the business deal.

The plot dares to take theatergoers into the intricately wound bowels of business, and director Greg Leaming emphasizes the surface simplicity of the characters and the staging. The cast of six reveals the truth about their lives in moments of weakness, sitting on balconies outside of cocktail parties, dealing with the questions of an inquisitive reporter, talking over a few shots of Jack Daniel's. Though these scenes initially strike the audience as illuminating the traditional weak points in human will, the characters harden as the play proceeds, and these poignant confessional dialogues turn out to be deceptive. But don't worry about feeling like the Hluboka village idiot as a result of The Third Army's mysteries, because it invites the audience to engage in the game all along. In not having the comfort of omniscience, the audience feels itself in the role of one of the characters and joins the cast in a search for the truth.

The set's cold, austere look is appropriate for business dealings, and scene changes are enhanced by filler audio tracks as affecting as the jarring network music that introduces breaking news stories. Though the business deals mostly occur in homes, the various props that make up the bedrooms and living rooms move into place with a militant rigor between scenes. As the beds move out toward the audience like small tanks, cold, metallic walls close behind them. The use of these locations of private ease as sources of confrontation emphasizes the invasiveness of the capitalistic system.

Costumes also exhibit simplicity, creating presumptions about each character that are later to be perverted. In one scene, Diane Brodsky (Meg Gibson), Lubo's wife, rolls around on a bed with no costume. Seeing her naked makes one think all her secrets and weaknesses have been exposed, but without even a blush to cover her, she still deceives her partner. The others wear business suits, the mark of cut-and-dry deals and security, but in them they reveal their passion and uncertainty.

This simplistic coating walks a dangerous line, however, as the acting sometimes reduces scenes to melodrama. Gibson's portrayal is so urgent and overwrought that her emotion actually sucks the tension out of certain key scenes. Triska's portrayal of Diane's husband is much more realistic and adds bite to the play, as he keeps his character's volatility subtly contained. This oiled ambition gives him so much charisma that I myself was almost ready to approve activating the power plant.

The Third Army proves a difficult play to end because the constant deceptions throughout make any assertion hard to believe. With a far too neat ending that lacks all of the complexity that makes this play so rich, it is as if Sutton's characters had suddenly joined a support group and confessed every single lie. Furthermore, as this story has yet to actually end in the Czech Republic (the playbill states that the Temelin Plant opened in October 2000), a manufactured attempt to tie all strings into a double knot is an unsatisfactorily happy ending to a real dilemma.

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