Fringe, Reviewed: “‘…the rags of time’: J. Robert Oppenheimer”
Please note: This article is published as an archive copy from Philadelphia City Paper. My City Paper is not affiliated with Philadelphia City Paper. Philadelphia City Paper was an alternative weekly newspaper in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The last edition was published on October 8, 2015.
"Moreover, he is the same man throughout time."
[ theater ]
"'...the rags of time': J. Robert Oppenheimer" by Exclamation Theater, Inc.
Attended: Thurs., Sept. 4, 7:30 p.m; closes Sun., Sept. 14
A...one-man show, imaginatively recounting a final soul-searching by the father of the atomic age as he faces his own death.
WE THINK:
Generosity and justice demand that John B. Comegno, in the role of J. Robert Oppenheimer, be given credit for his sheer effort, energy and commitment to what, for the actor, boils down to a 75-minute uninterrupted monologue, all while moving around a fairly minimal set.
Alas, Comegno is an actor without insight or subtlety (and without much useful direction, it seems, from Patricia L. Robinson-Linder). He is a series of mannerisms: The declarative utterance, the furrowed brow, the fixed gaze, the forced laugh, the wistful sigh, the rigid and at times robotic bearing. And he is these things regardless of whether he is talking to colleagues, his lover, his son or God himself. Moreover, he is the same man throughout time. From his moment of apogee in 1945 to the cancer ridden man a few weeks away from death in 1967, nothing in Comegno’s comportment changes. This isn’t acting as being; it’s acting as “acting,” which isn’t acting at all.
It is difficult then to know what to make of A.S. Ruch’s script. There are inclusions of great poetry in its many incarnations (Donne, Yeats, Chuck Berry), but there is too much exposition and biography as well. Given a chance to reveal the man, Ruch chooses to record him instead; which is just the beginning of a general poverty of imagination all around.
