THEATER / NANCY CHURNIN : ‘Two Rooms’ Humanizes Tale of a Hostage in Beirut

Physics teaches us that matter is neither created nor destroyed. Sunday, playwright Lee Blessing demonstrates the theory. As Blessing’s Tony-nominated “A Walk in the Woods” closes on Broadway, his brand new “Two Rooms” premieres at the La Jolla Playhouse.

Broadway’s loss is San Diego’s gain.

Although, from the looks of even the first preview night of “Two Rooms,” if Broadway has any brains, it will want to get its hands on Blessing’s story of an American hostage in Beirut as fast as it can.

Like “A Walk in the Woods,” Blessing’s new play humanizes the political dramas bannered on front pages. But “Two Rooms” does more than just personalize these events; it delves into the varied permutations of relationships among four people, moving in time and space to go inside the hearts and minds, imaginings and longings of a hostage (Jon De Vries), his wife (Tony-award winner Amanda Plummer), a government official (Jo Henderson) and a journalist covering the story (Brent Jennings).

The result is deeply affecting.

“A Walk in the Woods” is a fictional story based on the historical “walk in the woods” taken by two arms negotiators, Yuli A. Kvitsinsky from the Soviet Union and Paul Nitze from the United States, who reached an informal agreement on a reduction of short-range and intermediate-range weapons in Europe. The proposal was rejected by Moscow and Washington in an example of business as usual. The playwright makes the point that it is in the interest of the superpowers to maintain their weapons as a way of maintaining their primacy over the rest of the world.

The show was a San Diego smash last season, winning an extended run at the Playhouse, the Best New Play Award of the American Theatre Critics Assn. and several awards from the San Diego Critics Circle. More recently, it was given a special performance for the Senate, selected members of Congress and Cabinet officials including George Shultz in the Library of Congress.

Alas, Blessing’s first New York foray made the fatal mistake of being a serious drama in a medium that gluts itself on splashy, big-budget musicals. To compound that, it lost all the Tonys for which it was nominated and was edged out for the Pulitzer Prize by “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone,” August Wilson’s excellent drama, which also played in San Diego, at the Old Globe Theatre.

“Typically, it is not a money-making enterprise to put a serious play on Broadway,” Blessing said. “‘Fences’ is a great example of an exception. ‘M. Butterfly’ will do well now that it won the Tony. ‘Speed-the-Plow’ will do well. But ‘Glengarry Glen Ross’ didn’t recoup even though it won the Tony. ‘Joe Turner’ and my play won’t recoup.

“Most serious playwrights aren’t dreaming of Broadway, they’re dreaming of off-Broadway or good resident theater productions. That’s where the work happens in America.”

If Blessing has been dreaming of a good resident theater production, that is exactly what he is getting at the hands of the Playhouse. Certainly there’s a lot of excitement at the Playhouse about “Two Rooms.”

After having made a career of personal dramas that date from his MFA at the famed Iowa Writers Workshop in 1979 to “Independence” and “War of the Roses” at the O’Neill National Playwrights Conference in 1983 and 1985, Blessing shifted gears with his 1986 O’Neill offering, “A Walk in the Woods,” and vaulted into the spectrum of current events. Both “A Walk in the Woods” and “Two Rooms” are so in tune with the events of the day that it seems as if Blessing has antennae out to determine not only what has been happening, but what is going to happen.

Members of Tuesday’s night preview audience had reason to be astonished the next morning when they read Associated Press accounts of an impending hostage deal that seemed to have been plucked right out of “Two Rooms’ ” script. In the play, Blessing has the wife of a hostage criticize the journalist hostage for exploiting the story in the hope of getting the Pulitzer Prize.

Is Blessing himself manipulating the issue to get a Pulitzer Prize? Certainly no one is more cynical about why “A Walk in the Woods” attracted all the attention it did: “I think my play got to Broadway specifically because of what it was about, even though it is a good play,” Blessing said.

“Two Rooms” may very well go to Broadway for the same reason. It may even be nominated for the Pulitzer for the same reason. But that does not take away from the fact that, like “A Walk in the Woods,” it is a very good play. Blessing does deserve the Pulitzer that he missed the last time around. This may be his year. One can only hope it’s as lucky a year for the hostages.

Nothing but a time machine can bring back the ticket prices of the past. Still, the La Jolla Playhouse is doing what it can by continuing its “Pay What You Can” program that offers open-priced, general admission seating for the first Saturday matinee of each of its productions: July 2 for “Two Rooms,” July 16 for “Lulu,” Aug. 20 for “The Fool Show” and Sept. 3 for “80 Days.” A limit of four tickets can be purchased for literally whatever the buyer can afford before each show’s “Pay What You Can” performance.

Also in honor of today being the second anniversary of Arts Tix, the San Diego Theatre League is offering the possibility of prizes to people who can identify the celebrity voices on its phone line: 238-3810. Even the non-aurally astute should be helped by the generous hints included in the celebrity messages (Wednesday’s motherly voice included a telling reference to “the Fonz”). Winners qualify for free theater tickets or theater tickets and a night at the Horton Grand. Those who can’t identify the voices can still buy half-price tickets on the day of the performance at the Arts Tix booth at the Spreckels Theatre.