THEATER - "Home Front"

Yes, Home Front is a play about post-traumatic stress syndrome, and yes, it is a partially modernized version of Euripides's’ classic Greek drama, Herakles. But Daniel Algie's choice to set the show in 1972 makes the work both dated and formulaic, as out-of-touch with today as Herakles itself. Why set up one parallel to make another parallel? It seems that Algie just likes the road most traveled: his tragedy is tame and predictable, and his characters are the same.

Meg has spent the last seven years in and out of an insane asylum, too busy grieving for her MIA husband to care for her children. Fact. Her lonely father-in-law, Arthur, resents her for it, though he loves caring for his grandkids. Fact. (But we'll have to take the script's word for it -- Joseph Jamrog is so dispassionate as Arthur that he appears to be sleepwalking.) These two elements of the play are completely ignored in the second act. Fact. Heck, the only consistent thing is the scattered exposition, and while at least Fletcher McTaggert's delivery as the ex-MIA husband isn't bad, he's still delivering unflinchingly dull confessions. With such weak characters, there's no way to avoid listening to the dishpan dialogue: "This too shall pass. You're a tough old bird." I don't know if people once spoke like this, but doesn't the playwright have a license--no, a duty--to make it sound better?

As for E. Randahl Hoey's direction, save for an invigorating dream sequence early on in the first act that shows the promise of a more metaphorical play, the action is thick as cement, and about as exciting. There'’s so little happening that after chomping at the bit for two hours, the actors go overboard when the big moment hits, only to find that the play keeps going for another fifteen aimless minutes, just one more disconnected scene.

Home Front doesn'’t bring up any big questions; that's good, it doesn't seem capable of answering any. Instead, the play is a confessional: each character gets a lengthy monologue to encompass their sins. Arthur reveals that he's not actually Harrison's father. Meg reveals that she's not a good mother. And Harrison reveals that while being tortured for seven years, he had to do some things he'’s not very proud of. (Big shockers all, I know.) It seems to me that as long as Algie'’s written a play this long and overbearing, he might as well write himself in for the finale so that he too can confess or at least apologize for writing this play.