Could the parallels to today be any clearer? Mark St. Germain wrote Camping with Henry and Tom some thirty years ago as an historical speculation. Yet its themes have proven enduring and the Palm Beach Dramaworks production leavens the play’s comedic elements, shining a light on contemporary political discourse.
The play is based on the fact that inventor Thomas Edison and industrialist Henry Ford did go camping every year with their friends John Burroughs, the nature writer, and Harvey Firestone, the tire manufacturer. They called themselves the Vagabonds. In 1921 they invited President Warren G. Harding who accepted.
Enough of the facts; playwright St. Germain imagines such a trip with Harding only accompanied by Edison and Ford followed by a tailing secret service agent, in this engaging 3-hander-plus-1 dramedy. It is a fascinating character study of an “accidental” President, who would rather just bask in the glow of approbation shaking hands on the White House lawn, along with the ultra right-wing Ford (a wannabe President), and the cynical inventor, Edison, who interjects much humor and truth into the mix. Indeed, if history doesn’t repeat itself, it certainly rhymes with this production.
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| John Leonard Thompson, Tom Wahl and Rob Donohoe |
The plot is straightforward: the three are on their way to escape their normal (but famous) lives to a camping ground in a Model T Ford, with Henry Ford at the wheel after furtively arranging the trip to elude the press and secret service as well. They encounter a deer on the road, damaging the car, although its three occupants are OK (but not so much the deer who amusingly hangs on for most of the play), and suddenly we have a substantive play of dramatic confrontations and comic interactions, Ford having an agenda, clearly analogizing the play’s themes to the temper of our times.
Director William Hayes has a definite vision for setting the mood, beginning with his version of a silent movie of the trip up until the unfortunate rendezvous with the deer. He establishes a slapstick foreshadowing of the many laughs yet to come, which gives the audience a reason to like all the characters until the tone gradually changes and the afternoon wanes into evening.
He blends this into a breathtaking set by Bert Scott, consisting of a small clearing in the woods outside Licking Creek, Maryland. The set has three dimensional elements of the woods as well as a seemingly functioning fire pit right on stage, giving the play a fitting verisimilitude. The audience feels it can reach out and feel the flora. A Model T Ford completes Scott’s perfect scenic design.
Hayes has assembled three company veterans for the major rolls. They’ve acted together on the PBD stage so many times that this production soars as a tightly knit ensemble production. Hayes keeps their performances cohesive and well-integrated in spite of their diverse personalities discussing their families, fame, and failures. He allows his actors’ arcs to shine, from Ford’s baleful plans to becoming crestfallen, from Harding’s acquiescence to redemption and then acceptance, and Edison from comic foil to change agent.
John Leonard Thompson plays the obsessive Henry Ford, envisioning unlimited energy from a hydro-power project he hopes to steal from the government (hence, cornering and blackmailing President Harding on this trip ), as well as becoming the next President of the US, enlisting his “sociology boys” to gather dirt on Harding. It is blackmail pure and simple under the guise of patriotism. Thompson knows how to win over the audience as he relates some home-spun tales of his life and his admiration of Edison, as well as revealing his damaged relationship with his son, Edsel, but he also shows the very dark side of his character in musing what he would do “with the Jews.”
Ford delivers some eerie comparisons to today’s politics: “I want to knock some rust off this government! I want to give it back to the people and boot the moneychangers out of the temple so fast. It will make their heads spin. The shylocks and the socialists who don’t believe in a honest day’s work, and suck our teats instead….I want to fix this country and put it back on the road again, and that’s why I’m going to be the thirtieth President of the United States!” Or, in thinking about running, and his deficiencies as a public speaker, he proclaims that “I’ll just pay the best people as to how to say it and what to say.” Thompson, a frequent actor on the PBD stage, gives yet another stand-out, memorable performance such as his portrayal as Teach in American Buffalo fifteen years ago.
Another PBD veteran, Tom Wahl, who plays Warren Harding, assiduously peals away the layers of his character. It is a deceptively difficult role. The buoyantly optimistic, hail-fellow-well-met characterization by Wahl becomes an exuberant epiphanic portrayal of being released from the bondage of an inauthentic self. It took the rising conflict with Ford in the play for this realization to emerge and Wahl embraces the moment, reveling in it with great comic chops, a fantasy of being free from the burdens of the presidency and his wife (who considers her husband a trophy President)! His is a truly remarkable performance, among many throughout the years at PBD.
I haven’t counted them, but I would guess that in spite of the long theatrical resumes of his two costars, Rob Donohoe has had the most frequent appearances on the PBD stage. The variety of his performances has been staggering, and his role as Thomas Edison in this play is another triumph. It is delivered with a Mark Twain sense of humor and cynicism, self-deprecating and continuously ornery, with philosophical observations about “the damned human race.” He admonishes Ford for his extravagant view of their accomplishments, pointing out their inventions just made things easier, not necessarily improving the world: “we’re toymakers; don’t get noble on me, Henry.” Or his observation about “the great American fairy tale of Justice.”
Yet for most of the play, Donohoe’s intensity is in hibernation, released finally by demoniacal plans of Ford. His portrayal is transformed from observer to becoming a bold antagonist, from comic foil to a bulwark to protect the nation from what he clearly sees as a danger, Ford and others like him whose political currency is conspiracy theories and the quest for power and money. He recognizes Harding’s humanity and posits that it is civil servants like the secret service agent who run the government. He also has a deeply moving epiphany, when suddenly and tearfully he remembers the name of a boy who drowned when they were both children, something he had emotionally buried, a poignant “Rosebud moment” in the play. Superlatives are lacking for Donohoe’s performance.
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| John Leonard Thompson, Rob Donohoe and Tom Wahl-photo by Curtis Brown Photography |
Rounding out the cast is another familiar face, John Campagnuolo as Colonel Edmund Starling, a secret service man. He is all business in his trench coat, goggles up on his forehead after finding the three of them, borrowing Edsel’s Model T. He “takes care of” the hurt deer shocking Harding. And off the four go, to return to civilization; things have changed to remain the same.
Costume design is by Brian O’Keefe, 1921 authentic in detail and in that moment in time. All wear suits, and those ubiquitous straw boater hats but Edison and Harding also are outfitted in vests. Harding has a suit for the first Act, and an identical one for the second as he has slept on the ground soiling the original one.
Lighting design is by Kirk Bookman capturing light for the late afternoon as it wanes into night. White light illuminates the actors in the moonlight, and while, trying to determine their compass direction, they face the warm lighting of the sunset in the west. The seemingly functioning fire pit is brought to life by very clever lighting.
Sound design is by Roger Arnold, authentically creating the chatter of the forest, frogs, birds, and crickets permeating the production, plus the shuffling sounds of the injured deer as well as the echoes of the actors’ occasional shouts for help. And of course the sound of the Model T’s untimely meeting with the deer, launching all that follows.
Mark St. Germain has written such a relevant play, propitiously brought back to life at this moment in time by Palm Beach Dramaworks in a well-conceived, entertaining, but thought provoking production. At the denouement, Edison observes that Harding has something that he and Ford lack to which Ford immediately replies: “weakness” (our current president posted “only the weak will fail” on social media last week). Ford failed to understand that Edison meant a sense of shared human connection and understanding.
