THEATER - "Little Willy"

Early in the play Little Willy, Adolph Hitler’s nephew, William Patrick Hitler, says of the German people that “they were good . . . just misled.” I’d like to believe it, just as I’d like to believe that Little Willy is a good show that somehow went awry. After all, Mark Kassen (who also wrote the show) is a dynamic, engaging actor, and the plot—an examination of how Willy came to live in New York—is a gold mine of possibility. Of course, even surrounded by gold, you may still dig up lead, and if Little Willy occasionally glitters, it’s only pyrite—fool’s gold.

The script follows a strict formula, though it is far from formulaic: each of the three “acts” begins with the voice of the real William Patrick Hitler reading from his letter to the US and then follows a cyclical progress through six short scenes. These vignettes portray Willy's morally-depraved standards as he doubletalks his way from Germany (where Hitler's good for business) to the US (where he goes on a political lecture circuit, bashing Hitler). The scenes segue into one another by use of projected images on the background and the different characters of Roxanna Hope, who plays “et al.”—that is, everybody else. The problem is, the more Hope changes, the more Kassen stays the same. No matter what she throws at him (each time a “scene” repeats during the next cycle, or "act," she grows more distorted), Willy remains a smug, unsympathetic man. If the audio tapes are any indication (and word to the wise: if you’re going to play source material, you’d better be really good at mimicry), Willy felt shame and humility; he wasn’t just an unctuous automobile salesman; he couldn’t have just been another womanizing Irish scoundrel.

By playing a caricature, Kassen prevents his own show from being a story of redemption or forgiveness, and if anything, advocates sleaziness so long as you can get away with it. (In this case, Willy blackmails Adolph and then uses that same information to secure citizenship in the US.) The script is already thin enough (just over an hour long): it doesn’t work for such a shallow person either. The writing itself is solid, and most of the speeches are entertaining, but was that really the point? All that material on William Patrick Hitler played just for laughs? If so, it’s fair to say that the epilogue, a PowerPoint-like presentation on Willy’s three sons, really was more informative and heartfelt than most of Little Willy. Then at least the set seem appropriate: with just two chairs, the huge space seems as wasted and empty as the show itself.

For all that, it’s hard to give Little Willy a negative review: the man, the play, and the actor all beg so much to be loved. But without substance backing it, this begging grows tiresome, pathetic, and ultimately embarrassing: one more thing Willy can’t talk his way out of.