TV Review : ‘A Walk in the Woods’ Wends Its Way Toward Moscow

On May 19, Robert Prosky and Sam Waterston will open an 11-performance run of Lee Blessing’s “A Walk in the Woods” in Moscow. Tonight, on “American Playhouse” (Channels 28 and 15 at 9 p.m.), PBS viewers can get an idea of what the Muscovites will see.

This is a tape of Prosky and Waterston in a 1988 performance of the Broadway production. The stage director was La Jolla Playhouse’s Des McAnuff, who had earlier introduced the play to the Southland, in a 1987 La Jolla staging (with a different cast).

It remains a thin but fascinating duologue. Arms negotiators from the Soviet Union (Prosky) and the United States (Waterston) meet four times (in each of the seasons, over the course of a year) for informal talks in the woods near Geneva.

The American, a novice, is determined to forge a settlement. But his Soviet counterpart, a veteran who has been engaged in these talks for years, doubts whether anyone truly wants an agreement. He’d rather talk about trivia--and get to know his adversary as a friend.

The play isn’t very deep; what you hear is what you get. But it is an entertaining explanation of why these talks so often go nowhere. Of course, since it was written, an agreement was reached on the issue of intermediate-range missiles. But Blessing didn’t mention specific proposals--and he also makes the point that agreements often have been too little, too late. So the play retains much of its pertinence.

Prosky, with his remarkably expressive chins and cheeks, is a big Russian teddy bear, indubitably charming despite a few excessively cute lines. Waterston is properly stern and soulful.

The presence of the audience, not just on the sound track but also in occasional cutaway shots, reinforces the artifice of the event, making it more of a museum piece and less of a living event than it seemed in the theater. But nothing seriously interferes with the words that come spewing out of this pair. Be prepared to listen.