14
Oct/18

SUDDENLY

14
Oct/18
(photo by Victor Llorente)

John Baron (Drew Allen) talks to a crony while a terrified Ellen Benson (Phoebe Dunn) watches in Suddenly (photo by Victor Llorente)

HERE Arts Center
145 Sixth Ave. at Dominick St.
Tuesday – Saturday through October 20, $35, 8:30
212-647-0202
www.here.org
www.live-source.org

Live Source Theatre Group’s Suddenly is a taut if clumsily rendered adaptation of Lewis Allen’s 1954 thriller, with adroit changes to Richard Sale’s screenplay that add contemporary relevance. Adapted by Gianfranco Settecasi and directed by Tyler Mercer, the play, which continues at HERE through October 20, takes place on a Saturday afternoon in the summer of 1954, in a suburban house overlooking the train station. Living in the home is Ellen Benson (Phoebe Dunn), who has a hatred of guns ever since her husband was killed in the war; her young son, Pidge (Henry Fin Berry), who wants to be a sheriff when he grows up; and her father, Pop (Joseph J. Menino), a former Secret Service agent who once took a bullet for President Calvin Coolidge. Local sheriff Tod Shaw (Brendan Walsh) has a habit of stopping by, as he’s in love with Ellen, who is not ready to move on from her husband’s death. Ellen is furious when Pidge comes home with a toy gun Tod bought him, one that looks very much like the real thing. As the family waits for Jud Kelly (Sean A. Kaufman) to arrive to fix the busted television, three other men unexpectedly show up, identifying themselves as federal agents: John Baron (Drew Allen), Bart Wheeler (Chris Dieman), and Benny Conklin (Ariel Estrada). Baron claims that they are there because the president will be making a train stop in Suddenly later that afternoon and the Benson house provides a perfect vantage point for someone to attempt an assassination. However, it turns out that Baron and his cronies are the assassins, and the depraved Baron threatens to slice Pidge’s throat if anyone tries to stop them.

(photo by Victor Llorente)

John Baron (Drew Allen) takes over the Benson household in theatrical adaptation of 1954 thriller Suddenly (photo by Victor Llorente)

While the original, which evoked such claustrophobic classics as The Petrified Forest and Key Largo, focuses on the demonic character of Baron, Mercer (Bohemian Lights, The Incredible Fox Sisters) and Settecasi’s update (Uncle Gifff’s Christmas Special) concentrates on the 1950s sensibility of a traditional American family, seen through a lens more than sixty years later, with an important twist: Instead of being proud that her husband died for his country, Ellen is angry. And she doesn’t want her son to follow in his father’s footsteps — nor does she want Pidge to have even a toy gun. The gun plays a pivotal role in this adaptation, given the current furor over gun control in America and police shootings of people, including children, holding fake pistols or other objects. The acting is stylized: midcentury plain with a touch of noir. Mercer wisely chooses not to have Allen, Walsh, and Menino compete with Frank Sinatra, Sterling Hayden, and James Gleason, who played their respective parts in the film. However, Dunn brings a modern edge to Ellen, portrayed by Nancy Gates in movie, giving her more strength and a deeper texture. Where Gates’s Ellen faints, Dunn’s takes action. The cast stumbles over some lines, Allen removes his hat way too much, the video projections are relatively unimaginative (except for the opening credits sequence), Pop says he wants to watch the White Sox-Cubs game but it’s a Pittsburgh-New York matchup that ultimately comes on, and the climactic scene in which Jud and Pop try to electrocute Baron using the broken television is completely botched — what’s with those black wires running across the stage through the whole show anyway? But there’s still enough to enjoy in this straightforward adaptation, which includes an in-your-face ending that differs greatly from the film’s conclusion.